


Watch The Hourglass

by Speedy1236



Series: Triple Threat Novels [3]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Chaos Emeralds, Friendship, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2020-03-02 05:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 87,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speedy1236/pseuds/Speedy1236
Summary: Watch the Hourglass. Doors close when time is up! And once the door has closed on you, there is no escape.An accident at a base of Dr Eggman's gets Sonic and Knuckles lost in space and time. Tails is left alone to deal with the consequences and has to get them back before it's too late. If they can survive that long, that is.A Triple Threat story that transcends time and space.





	1. To Spoil An Experiment

**Watch The Hourglass**

_… doors close when time is up._

\- Omochao; Sonic Adventure 2 –

* * *

**To Spoil An Experiment**

"Hey! Look out!"

Cursing under his breath, Knuckles reacted to Sonic's call just in time. He threw himself to the floor, sliding on his belly for a couple of meters. It was just barely enough for the machine gunner's fire to slice harmlessly through the air above him.

His slide came to a halt directly to another robot's feet; a compared to other models rather small one, humanoid, clumsy-looking, with red armor, called Egg Pawn… The things weren't actually excelling in smartness or combat power, but persistent when given a machine gun - but the echidna didn't give it any time to react to his presence.

Ducked down to avoid being hit, Knuckles moved around the roundish fighting machine and shot upright in its back, carrying the force of the movement bringing him back to his feet into a fierce uppercut that blew the robot's head right off its shoulders. It still kept firing, apparently the head not required for its operation. Knuckles snatched a hold of the bot's left arm, and, ducking down again, swung the machine over his back. Releasing his grip on it, he let it soar through the air until it collided with the merciless concrete of the next wall in its flight path.

The red echidna hardly took the time to watch it terminate its existence in a small fireball; the staccato of anew gunfire caused him to whirl around, ready to jump… somewhere. He relaxed for a second at finding he didn't need to. Sonic struck the robot shooting at him like a cannonball; the force of the impact throwing the Egg Pawn flying a way approaching the one Knuckles' last had taken as well.

A brief nod thanked Sonic for clearing his back and was acknowledged with a grin and a short wave before the hedgehog took off again, bouncing between the remaining wannabe killer machines at a speed that made Knuckles' head spin. Taking out a handful of robots barely touching them as he went, Sonic actually seemed to be enjoying himself. A jump brought the blue hedgehog up into the air and then launching himself at robot after robot without touching the ground anymore. A blur of blue. Knuckles shook his head. Sonic called the move 'homing attack', and Knuckles was damned if he ever understood how the hedgehog did that.

"Whaa!" The high-pitched yelp of the third member of the team pulled Knuckles out of a senseless state of just standing and watching his blue friend work. Spinning around, the echidna's eyes searched Tails.

They found the young fox a second later. Apparently he'd tried jumping a robot from behind, but the machine had fallen on him. Now the two-tailed boy struggled to free himself, his legs and one of his tails caught under the Egg Pawn that was apparently heavier than it looked on first sight. As if unimpressed by its horizontal position, the robot was busily shooting what ammo it had left without seeming to bother taking actual aim at anything.

Knuckles frowned. If Tails wasn't going to be pancaked sooner or later, he was still endangered of being hit by a ricocheting projectile. A look over his shoulder revealed Sonic to be occupied with one of the few robots equipped with laser weapons; the twirl of blue was hopping and rolling between short beams of neon green light.

At least the hedgehog was keeping what was left of the welcome squad busy. Knuckles turned back to Tails. "Hang in there, I'm coming!"

Running and dodging the aimlessly straying projectiles rebouncing off walls or ceiling, the echidna approached the stuck fox. Twisted in a not very comfortable or healthy looking way, Tails had reached out for the robot's right arm and was pulling and yanking on it, trying to keep it from taking aim at Knuckles.

It was clear who would win this wrestling competition, but even if Tails' chances to outpower the robot were roughly guessed very little above zero, his struggles still served as a distraction. Also a combat robot apparently could look only one way. It could shoot in two, anyway.

Another curse slipped through Knuckles' lips and the echidna stumbled, barely avoiding taking a hit. He still had rings, but he didn't feel like wasting them. Chaos knew what would come later…

Finally reaching Tails and his overly close robot, Knuckles slipped to his knees and slammed his spiked fist into the robot's left armpit. Attacking from above would have been an easier and much more promising way, but the force of his punch would crush poor little Tails. Dealt from below, the impulse given to the robot flipped it over and sent it flying a few meters. Tails, still clinging to the other arm, went with it.

"Let go!", Knuckles shouted.

The call finally made it click; double namesakes spinning Tails released the hold on the robot and hovered above it as it landed, shredding the momentum until hitting a wall. The red lights in its optics flickered, but it raised its weapon arm and moved to stand up again.

Only Knuckles diving into it fists first changed its plans.

Standing back on his feet, the red echidna watched Tails touch down at his side, a smile on his face. "Thanks a lot, Knuckles! I had some trouble with that one…"

Knuckles smiled a little. "Don't mention it, kid."

"Hey, guys!" Sonic's call let Knuckles turn around. The blue hedgehog stood in midst of piles of wreckage. "I think there are no more complaints to us entering this wonderful base, what do you think?" Sonic grinned.

"Nope, they're all strangely silent…" Tails giggled. Walking up to the large portal in front of them, the fox' fingers swiftly moved over a numeric panel next to it, granting them entrance now that the guards were taken care of.

Just as expected, Sonic was the first inside. Knuckles followed him and Tails, his eyes sharply gazing around. You never knew what other welcome treats you'd find behind the next corner.

The most outstanding thing about the corridor they'd landed in however was a big computer terminal tucked into the wall to their left. Immediately Tails was at it, cerulean eyes fixed on the multiple, slightly green-tinted screens. He'd made a keyboard pop out of what had looked like plain wall to Knuckles a second later through some act of techno wizardry. The echidna didn't really question it. The same way he channelled the Master Emerald's energies on instinct, Tails used computers and other kind of obscure machinery, be it some he built himself or Eggman's stuff.

"Found anything interesting, little bro?", Sonic queried, his left foot tapping the floor. Knuckles didn't need to ask to know the hedgehog itched to be going again.

Tails shrugged. "Of course there are firewalls and security protocols. I'll have to breach them, first…"

"Of course…", Sonic echoed. "How long's that gonna take ya?"

Another shrug. "It depends on how complex the system is, and on my luck. But I think once I'm in, I can get the system to tell me some details on Eggman's plans with the Emerald… and that could help us stopping him."

"Do we have the time to breach these… whatever they were called?", Knuckles asked, watching meaningless chains of meaningless symbols rush over the screens. Meaningless to him, that was. To the fox it all made perfect sense of course. At least Knuckles hoped that.

Tails shook his head. "I don't know, but I'd like to try. I think it's best the two of you get going on. Find Eggman and his experiment. Try to delay him. I'll catch up with you as soon as I'm done here."

"You'll find us?" Sonic bounced on the balls of his feet.

"Sure." Tails briefly turned back to the others and flashed a smile. "I'll just follow the trail of broken robots you leave."

"Ah." The blue hedgehog chuckled. "Good point. Then we're off." He turned to Knuckles, and the echidna nodded his agreement. "Let's get your Emerald back before Eggy does something stupid with it."

Knuckles gave him another nod and the two took off jogging along the blank, metallic corridor.

In a way, Eggman's bases looked all the same. So far they hadn't found the bright neon lights of self-presentation yet, nor the Eggman-shaped logos everywhere… but Knuckles expected that just to be a matter of time.

Sonic was keeping a pace he knew the echidna could keep as well, and they progressed quickly. Every now and then a robot was unfortunate enough to cross their path and was taken down almost too fast for Knuckles to watch.

_If someone had told me yesterday I'd be breaking into Eggman's headquarters_ … The echidna shook his head, looking between the metal and the red lights all around and smelling the pollution in the air they were forced to breathe. Yesterday… Yesterday morning he'd been sitting on the stairway of the Emerald altar, his hat – a present from Sonic for the solstice they'd celebrated together some time ago - half over his face, and thinking nothing bad at all. In the evening of that day, he'd had the one Chaos Emerald he kept on the island stolen by Eggman. At least, it wasn't the Master Emerald, although Knuckles didn't understand why Eggman would go for just the Chaos Emerald.

His immediate chase after the thief had caused Knuckles to bump into Sonic and Tails who were also on his heels. They'd told him Eggman was about to conduct some sort of experiment to be able to use a great new weapon – so far unknown of – at any place and anytime he wanted. Or that was what Eggman said. Knuckles idly wondered how much more successful his plans would be if he would keep his mouth shut about them.

Without knowing any details, Knuckles had accompanied his friends; common goals and everything. So, now his hat lay on the table back at Tails' workshop in the Mystic Ruins, and Sonic and him were running for Eggman and the Chaos Emerald.

For a reason he couldn't entirely place, the echidna was longing for a reunion with his hat… Yeah, Knuckles really hoped tomorrow would be more like yesterday again.

* * *

The gentle, constant whirring of fans, and the occasional beeping notification were the only sounds to be heard. Deep down in his headquarters' center the 'baselord' sat surrounded by computer screens and holograms. It was a secluded, protected sanctuary, without much contact to even the rest of the complex unless specifically asked for, the place to think and work without interruptions or disturbances.

Ivo Robotnik's fingers absentmindedly ran over his moustache; stretching it slightly and twiddling with the hair. His thoughts however were focussed on the datasheet before him. The newest test report of his current project… Well, one of the current projects. A high-intensity laser cannon, its construction based on the blue prints of his grandfather's Eclipse Cannon and two devices of a similar sort he'd built before. Both of these installations had been put up in outer space. The handful of Kelvin in millions of lightyears of cold void around offered a marvellous source for the required cooling mechanisms… And mind you, the multiple generators, tesla coils, capacitors and wiring required a lot of cooling to not exceed their working conditions. Dealing with energies enough to blast their way down to the very planet's core asked for special measures.

Robotnik had still not figured out why that blasted thing of a mind control beam had backfired… Something had gone horribly wrong, but he had no idea what. None of the sheer endless amount of surveillance protocols and dozens of algorithms, solely created for that one purpose, gathered every second on all of his machines' status was able to provide him with an explanation.

He'd scratched it, dumped the event on the mental junkyard of failed plans. He'd accumulated a fair amount of these during the past five years… ever since he started. Robotnik winced at pulling too roughly on his moustache, courtesy of the not pleasant memories. Forcing his hand away from his hair and to the keyboard, he tried his best erasing the past failures from his consideration. He had practice, and apparently also a good amount of talent… He'd gotten forgetting defeat and starting over down to a fine art.

No, for this time, he'd decided to stay away from space travel. Even given the undeniable pros a construction side in outer space had to his purposes – unlimited space, cooling as much as anything could ever need and it came for free, little risk to have that horrid little hedgehog interfere with his plans while still in the making… well, at least less risk than at other places - but there were also cons. Getting the required material up there was a lot of work and needed time and efforts, the lack of gravity in space was a double-edged sword… and getting the weapon into a stable orbit while still being able to attack anywhere on the planet also was a complicated matter.

This time, Robotnik wanted to keep his cannon on the ground. Of course, this also wasn't the most perfect deal; even though it could be considerably smaller, it still wanted to be fed huge amounts of juice, and due to its make-up the prototype was big, heavy, and sensitive. Shifting it around was out of question without getting himself into more trouble; stationary would be the easiest to construct, but not practical for a weapon at all. A large airship, akin to his Egg Carriers would work, but attacking suddenly without anyone being warned by a big, easy to spot and not very fast aircraft was out of question that way.

How to transport something big, heavy and complex quickly over large distances? The answer was simple. Either via teleporters or... wormholes.

Teleporters worked, that was known, but their design was prone to mistakes, and they consumed a lot of energy… He wasn't sure yet if his other idea would consume any less energy, but it brought along the advantage that the device could be constructed as stationary – with all the pros placing it inside his base, with near endless maintenance resources and everything – and only the thing he really wanted to move would be moved.

On the bad side, he'd never actually tried it out before; and the first experiments on a new technology always brought along a certain amount of risk. Still, he'd decided to attempt it. After all, the scientist Robotnik wanted to know how it turned out…

A smile tugged on Ivo's lips and he stood abruptly from his chair. Time to get the experiment going…

Five minutes later, Robotnik entered his main lab; a huge hall full of half-finished machinery. Magnetic flux compressors, ring accumulators and other devices were lined up in several parallel rows of hundreds of meters length. At the very end of it all, the current main project sat tucked on top of an anti-gravity platform, in a perfect horizontal, keeping the sensitive electrics from being influenced even by the slightest movement Mobius' ground might do under the base.

Ivo moved past the machine, up a small stairway and into the observation room. Through the thick, reinforced special glass, capable of withstanding even a short chaos flux, he had a perfect view on his experiment.

Robotnik's fingers gracefully moved over the controls.

**Auxiliary ring energy source – ON.**

**All surveillance systems – ON and NOW RECORDING.**

**Main power supply – ON.**

A short glace down through the glass showed a satisfactory glow at the relevant parts. Robotnik nodded to himself, his hand hovering over the next button.

**Insert Chaos Emerald…**

**…**

**Activating Chaos Field Stabilizer…**

**Chaos Emerald inserted.**

**ALL MODES ENGAGED. Continue? Y _ N?**

The smile on Robotnik's face broadened to a grin. "Here we…"

**_"BEEP BEEP BEEP! ALERT! ALERT! BLUE EMERGENCY IN MAIN LABORATORY! REPEAT! BLUE EMERGENCY IN MAIN LABORATORY! ALERT!"_ **

"What?! This can't be!"

Hands pressing against the glass, Robotnik stared down into his lab. The surveillance computer was right; there was that pesky hedgehog, progressing between the machines, accompanied by that red knucklehead of an echidna, and they were heading straight for his experiment.

"NO! Stop them!" Fingers now rushing over a second keyboard, Robotnik activated the defence protocols. "HA! Take this, pincushion!"


	2. Blast Away!

"Whoa! Look at all this stuff!" Sonic felt his eyes widen and he slowed down to a standstill in the broad entrance to the big room.

"Yeah…" Knuckles' voice was quiet with awe, and something Sonic couldn't place. "Just what does it all do?"

Sonic's eyes roamed the seemingly infinite trail of machinery. Huge metal blocks, some taller than houses, sculptured in bizarre forms, designed to perform obscure actions. Blinking lights on some indicated the automatons were alive, while others stood still and in darkness. Nevertheless, the metal surface was glazed flawlessly, polished and clear of even the tiniest trace of dust. That was something Sonic had to hand to Eggman: He put lots of efforts into his things. That didn't keep them from never actually working properly… or looking totally odd.

The blue hedgehog's eyes stopped for a moment to take in the round top of one of the tall machines. Painted in a shade of red approaching the brightness of Knuckles' fur, with golden, round plates attached to it, tipped with another ball-shaped _thing_ designed with a painted face and an iconic moustache, it represented another case of Eggman's notorious self-presentation.

Sonic shook his head. In the eyes of a Mobian the huge, egg-shaped person with the ridiculously long limbs, the tiny eyes and the disturbing lack of fur wasn't anything of an attractive sight… but Sonic could even imagine that for one of Eggman's species that might be different.

Okay, it was _hard_ to imagine that, but he tried his best.

Still, did Eggman find his own form so nice to look at he had to keep designing his robots, space ships, containers and other stuff in his image? Sonic thought of himself as a rather good-looking fellow… but he wouldn't like seeing stuff shaped like himself all the time at all. Eggman's tastes however seemed totally different. Somehow, that weirdo had something for huge statues of himself.

Tearing his gaze away from the bizarre machine, Sonic let his eyes wander over the rest of the strange devices again.

Eventually he spoke up, replying to Knuckles' question although the echidna had surely meant it to be rhetorical. "If you want me to hazard a guess, based on past experiences, it will shoot stuff at us, explode, electrocute us, trap people inside, start glowing… or do something that's a mixture of these things."

"I could have figured." A rare chuckle from his side told Sonic his comrade appreciated his sarcastic tone, what was in itself a slight surprise. Usually, in situations like this one, Knuckles tended to be unpleasantly serious.

It wasn't that Sonic was all jokes and fun. There were moments that called for seriousness and putting the jokes aside for a while. Even happy-go-lucky Sonic knew that, despite common beliefs. The way it looked, they were heading right for one of these.

"If I'm not completely mistaken, there's some kind of humming coming from the end of this _dome_." Somehow, the hedgehog still couldn't keep from adding a notion of irony again through pet-naming the place. "If it isn't Eggman trying out his musical side, I guess he's turning on one of his strange machines. Might as well be the latest doomsday device, don'tcha think?" The hedgehog turned to his friend.

Knuckles shrugged. "If so, I bet my hat that's where my Chaos Emerald went."

"Sorry, pal, I got nothing to put in. The few bucks I got with me are my last reserves and will only be spent on emergency chilli dogs." Sonic flashed a grin. "And I don't like losing… I bet you'd win that one."

Skipping on Sonic's chilli dog money, Knuckles pointed. "I think we should be going. Better get over there before Eggman starts… whatever he wants to start."

Giving the echidna a nod, Sonic deliberately started walking through the straight gap between the machine blocks around, heading for the source of the deep humming sound filling the room. "If Tails doesn't hurry up, he'll miss on the party…"

Following closely behind the hedgehog, Knuckles gave another vague shrug. "He might as well tell us what it was we trashed after we're done with it. I wouldn't mind."

Sonic chuckled. "I'm with you."

By now they'd gotten close enough to the other side of the long room to be able to get a first glimpse of their goal. Eggman's latest invention didn't look that much different from a few of the other devices in here.

A grin tugged on Sonic's lips again. "Told ya. It glows." He pointed. "And there's Eggman!"

The wannabe ruler of Mobius was separated from them by a layer of glass. Apparently, he had noticed their arrival anyway, he was gesturing wildly at them, or at some of the monitors he had in front of himself.

_Doesn't seem too happy to see us… Getting smarter, are we?_

The robots that suddenly turned up all around them were at least a proof Eggman's reaction was quick this time around. "I almost think he expected us," Sonic noticed.

"Hm." A grunt was the only reply he got out of Knuckles.

Frowning, Sonic flicked his ears and shot a side-glance at the echidna, but still kept a good part of his attention on the newly appeared guard robots as well as their creator up there in his observer's post. "Something up?"

"The Emerald's here. I can feel it."

Sonic's eyes narrowed a little. "Fine then. As it looks, we'll have to get rid of these guys first."

"Yeah." For a second, Knuckles' eyes searched Sonic's.

"Alright then." The hedgehog nodded firmly. It turned out as a signal for both of them; Knuckles plunged into a small group of robots to their left, while Sonic took that as a cue to start off to the right.

Not given much space to gather speed, he concluded to have more of an advantage in the air. More space to move around. Sonic was not only a great sprinter, he was also a great jumper. Getting a meter above every robots' heads was a piece of cake. Taking aim at the one standing closest to him, the hedgehog directed his jump straight towards it, tucking his body into a tight ball and stiffening his quills as he went.

Honestly Sonic had no idea how he knew where he was going. It wasn't that he could see anything. Still, there was a _picture_ in his head telling him exactly where he was at the moment, as well as where everything else was. He almost never missed his aim.

In fact, he'd more often run into something with eyes open and looking, just through a momentary lack of attention, than he had crashed into stuff he didn't want to crash into while curled up. Maybe he was paying more attention to directions that way, because he usually only curled up in battles, and the adrenaline was great to boost his awareness. Maybe it was also possible that this mysterious, inexplicable sense of his that told him where he was spinballing or home-attacking was even more reliable than his sharp eyes. Sonic didn't know, and seriously he didn't care much.

With a satisfactory clanking sound Sonic's spines contacted with the robot's armor and he bounced off, heading right for the next. He touched down gently on his feet after the tenth contact, having for now cleared the space around him.

A quick look over his shoulder showed him Knuckles was doing good as well; a mighty punch planted right under a robot's chin sent the machine flying and smashing against the window Eggman stood behind and was watching the battle. To Sonic's big surprise, the robot rebounced off the glass without doing any harm to it. Not the slightest crack.

"Wow. New glass stuff, Eggman? Pretty neat," he allowed mockingly, hoping to provoke the human into coming out to personally join them. That always made the fights more interesting.

Eggman didn't reply, if he couldn't hear Sonic or just ignored him was impossible to tell for the hedgehog. The mad scientist seemed rather busy with his keyboards to Sonic. Probably ordering some more defence bots into the fray.

The fact a fresh bunch of them turned up in that moment proved Sonic right. Taking advantage of the free space he'd caused around himself, the blue hedgehog launched his body into a short sprint, ramming into the first member of the new squad full tilt. Soles screeching on the ground, Sonic slid to a halt again, watching the robot's breaking form hurtle through the air.

The flight this machine was clearly not designed for ended rudely when it collided with one of the glowing parts attached to the big, obscure apparatus that was Eggman's newest experimental doomsday weapon or something.

The robot vanished from existence in an almost disappointingly small pop, not even a real explosion… but it was enough to do some major damage to the weird, glowy _thing_ it had hit. Electrical discharges let hundreds of miniature lightening bolts and a fireworks of sparks flicker over the device.

As if in slow-motion, Sonic watched the sizzling damage, watched Eggman's face take a look of total horror, watched the crazed scientist punch his dashboards in what was looking too much like sheer desperation, watched him turn and run to what probably was an emergency exit in the back of the small room he'd sat in, abandoning his machines…

The sparks were now rapidly increasing in numbers, and it seemed as if the entire, big machine was starting to glow while everything around, the air, the look of the walls, was flickering, getting in and out of a focus it didn't have.

"Uh, Knuckles? I think it'll blow up now," Sonic noticed, surprised by the weird sound of his voice. Distorted, blurred. Just like everything else was blurry…

Knuckles didn't react; he stood and stared open-mouthedly at what was happening.

"Knuckles!", Sonic shouted, rudely shaking his friend by the shoulders. "This isn't the time for standing around! This is the time for running away, and fast!"

The echidna nodded, finally. Gripping his arm, Sonic pulled him along as he did what he'd said. Run. And forced Knuckles to do the same even as things seemed to happen a little too fast for him to follow at the moment. What was a little weird 'cause usually the echidna wasn't _that_ slow…

Sonic shot a glance over his shoulder as he bolted the way back they'd come, just to see something that looked like a bubble form, glowing in blindingly bright light, but still transparent as water, providing a blurry look to the other side of the huge lab. If it was an explosion, it was soundless, and it came without heat. But whatever it was, it was _fast_.

And it kept becoming even faster.

Grinding his teeth, Sonic felt unpleasantly reminded of the one time in his life he'd been not fast enough to run from something. Just a few months ago, the explosion or whatever it was that had swallowed up Eggman's amusement park plan had also swallowed up Sonic.

He'd run, ran faster than ever before, pushed himself beyond all limits… but it had not been enough. He'd survived only because the wisps, as energy beings unaffected by the purple sucking ball of doom, had rescued him and safely brought him down to Mobius. Fainted from exhaustion. Exhaustion from _running_. Sonic had never before considered it could come to _that_.

This time, it was starting to feel the same. Sonic ran, putting in everything he had. He was still holding on to Knuckles' arm, and he was still running past the large machines in Eggman's dome-like lab.

Still? He was going so fast… He knew the feeling of breaking the sound barrier, and he knew he _had_ broken it seconds ago. How could be still be in the room? He should be out of this freaking base by now! This didn't make any sense!

But… Nothing made sense. The ground was blurring below his feet, the room before him seemed to tunnel and twist, the ceiling looping into the floor… It was dizzying, and Sonic was sure this wasn't an effect of exhaustion this time. He'd ran not near long enough, and the day before had been not near to as straining as that last time.

Another hasty glance back made Sonic yelp. The blurry, glowing barrier was right there, right behind him.

Sonic panted, eyes narrowed to slits. He had… to go… _faster_ …

From behind him, he heard Knuckles scream out in pain or fear or something else, and Knuckles _never_ screamed. A second later, Sonic's vision turned bright white, a pain as if he was ripped to tiny bits tearing through every fibre of his body. He thought he'd lost his grip on Knuckles, but the instant later he couldn't tell anymore. Could tell nothing anymore.

The world was gone. The floor was gone, and the air to breathe, and everything else. There was just the pain, and the light, and still, there was nothing.

 _Everywhere_.


	3. Behind The Barrier

"Gotcha!" Tails triumphantly shook a fist at the computer sceen. Last firewall down… Alright.

Grin wiped away by serious concentration, he started searching Eggman's databanks. Current projects… There were two, as it seemed… And one of them was being activated right at this moment.

A few orders typed into the keyboard opened several windows, one supplying Tails with general data on the experiment. The fox frowned. What did Eggman need equations on tunnel effects and a long list of various chaos parameters for?

Shaking his head, Tails moved over to the other windows.

One of them showed surveillance camera images from the lab, and apparently Sonic and Knuckles were already there, in a busy quarrel with a bunch of guard robots. Tails smiled, as far as he could tell from the looks of it, the two of them were doing pretty good. Robots were flying to all sides…

One, hurtled especially far after an impact with a spinballing Sonic tumbled dozens of meters through the air before smashing into what Tails considered some sort of generator supplying the experiment with energy. Obviously upset about the harsh contact, electric sizzles ran over the device, sparks flying. Tails' eyes widened, watching Sonic and Knuckles stare for a second before the hedgehog gestured wildly, pushing the echidna along, both of them taking flight. As they left, the entire image filled with white-hot light.

It took almost ten seconds until the image was back, static-disturbed, but clear enough to see the lab again. To Tails' huge surprise, nothing really seemed damaged… other than Eggman's experimental machine, which was smoking, the majority of its parts reduced to a charring chunk. Sonic and Knuckles were nowhere to be seen.

Worriedly Tails activated his wristlet-computer. Had they made it out? He should be able to find them… Sonic's watch contained a communicator and any traceiver could be located.

When the result of the search turned up on his screen, Tails shook his head. This didn't make any sense. If he was to believe his readings, and the strength of the signal, Sonic was thousands of kilometres away. Minimum.

* * *

There was a flash of white light accompanied by an odd, painfully tingling feeling tearing through his body. It lasted for just a few seconds, then Knuckles was suddenly falling freely.

The fall wasn't long; by the time the echidna realized he was indeed falling and considered trying a glide in spite of seeing nothing but whiteness and having not the slightest idea which way was up, he landed full length on his belly with a loud thud.

Knuckles grunted, concluding just from the renewed pain the landing had caused and the cold, hard and slightly wet way it felt underneath him that he'd crashed on some sort of rock. He blinked, getting up on his hands and knees, shaking his head in an attempt to chase off the headache that still hung heavily over his senses. The guardian wasn't sure if it actually was the shaking doing it or if it happened in its own, but the dizziness faded after a moment.

It didn't take the disorientation however. Knuckles carefully got to his feet, slowly turning once on the spot, trying to make some sense of his surroundings and of what had just happened.

The ground beneath his feet was cobbled; dark grey, rectangular pieces of rock in tidy lines. To his left, a wall from the same material stood up to about twice his height, its right end showing other walls had been attached to it, but everything left of them was a crumbled pile of small stones. In one of the spots having once been corners of the room he stood in, a sandal bobbed gently up and down in a puddle of muddy water.

"Where in the world am I?", Knuckles mumbled, crawling over one of the mounts of wreckage. He froze when he reached the top of it. "And what the heck happened here?"

The sight before him was a picture of destruction. Knuckles found himself overlooking the ruins of a city. Some houses stood in a half that was mostly unharmed, and then the second half looked as if it had been cut off by a giant sword striking from above, leaving the second half just another heap of stones and wood. Some buildings had fallen completely, here and there a single wall sticking out of the chaos, stubbornly having withstood whatever had come upon this town. In between the destruction, puddles from the size of a foot up to small lakes mirrored a muddy reflection of the ruins.

Knuckles could only stand and gape. To say he was shocked was an understatement. He couldn't believe what he saw. Whatever had happened here… if this was what was left of this town… what happened to the people living here before? A shudder ran down his spine and he briefly turned over his shoulder, glancing back at the sandal in the puddle, but he quickly turned away when his stomach made him feel like it wanted to throw up.

Slowly the echidna climbed down the heap of rocks, aimlessly following what had once probably been a street. Reaching the next corner of it, he found a small group of candles sitting next to the remains of a house, almost fully burned down, but the flames still alive.

Forcing himself to concentrate on his breathing and keep walking, Knuckles reached the end of the ruins and found himself on what apparently had once been a field of some sort. Secretly glad to be out of this dead city, the echidna walked another minute and then dropped down on the stem of a fallen, lone tree.

His head was spinning. Pushing past the shock and confusion, Knuckles tried to make some sense of this. Of everything that happened.

He'd been with Sonic and Tails in Eggman's base, trying to stop this experiment. There had been an explosion, Sonic had told him to run and -

Sonic.

Where was Sonic? Where was Eggman's base, his machines…? Where was _he_?

Knuckles groaned, forcefully shaking his head again. _Okay Knuckles, calm down and think clearly…_ He remembered the explosion. He remembered Sonic running. And then… then there was that bright light and the headache and this destroyed town and he was here and…

The echidna drew a slow breath. Bright light. Headache. Mysterious change of location.

Chaos Control.

A Chaos teleport, to be precise.

It was the only thing that fit something like what he was experiencing. Knuckles had never tried it. He knew the Master Emerald held the capabilities to do it. He didn't know if _he_ could do it, and he'd never been in any situation that made him feel an experiment with unknown outcome on the Master Emerald, the most powerful thing on the planet and subject of his destined duty, would be justified.

Sonic however… Knuckles had seen him use Chaos Control on the space colony Ark. The hedgehog didn't use it often; as far as Knuckles was concerned it was a complicated and straining thing to him, so he preferred relying on his speed when fighting.

Had Sonic used Chaos Control to get them out of Eggman's exploding whatsoever? Generally Knuckles wouldn't mind being saved that way, but the way things looked now… Sonic had used something he was everything but good at on him, and he'd ended up at some random fricking place lying in ruins.

The echidna ground his teeth, the confusion and disorientation and shock about what he'd seen slowly melting into anger. Anger directed at the person responsible for this mess. A person that never thought about what he did and risked his own life as much as that of people around him.

Knuckles' hands fisted. He'd find Sonic, and he'd make sure the hedgehog would never forget the points Knuckles would make on why you don't use something you hardly manage for yourself on random bystanders…

"You're so going to get it, hedgehog," he shouted out, agitated enough to not just grumble it to himself, but he hadn't expected an answer.

"Knuckles? That you? Help!"

The red echidna started storming towards the voice of the current subject of his rage, but the message that lay much more in the tone of Sonic's call than the words got through even to the enraged guardian. And it made him all the more confused.

Knuckles blinked, his temper not knowing how to deal with this new notion, and he struggled to make sense of it. Sonic was calling for _help_. Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog called for help. Help. Sonic never did anything like that. And now he did it with a _desperation_ in his tone… Knuckles knew only two things that had ever made Sonic scream for help. The first was the pink hedgehog girl Amy Rose and the giant hammer she used to make Sonic realize his feelings for her. The second was a certain wet liquid when it came in bigger compounds…

"Hey! Anybody hear me?!"

The anew call brought Knuckles back to his senses and he pushed the tirade of thoughts and feelings in his head aside for now. "I'm coming, Sonic!"

Running towards the direction of the hedgehog's calls, it didn't take Knuckles long to find him. He stopped at the edge of a rectangular hole in the ground, with its six by six meters rather big. Its walls were made of the same sort of stones the buildings in the city had been constructed of. Knuckles couldn't guess how deep it was, at the moment it was filled up to two meters below him with water.

"That's a reservoir for the fields," the echidna realized. "A well… or some sort of rain storage…"

" _K_ n _u_ c _k_ l _e_ s!"

The shaky call of his name made the echidna finally focus his attention on the middle of the pool. Clinging to a piece of wood for dear life, Sonic stared up at him, and the miserable look the hedgehog gave was enough to let Knuckles almost forget the plans of murder he'd made just a minute ago. The hedgehog's large green eyes were screaming despair, his triangular ears folded against his head so tightly it nearly seemed as if he didn't have any ears.

Knuckles called over to him. "How in the world did you get yourself there?!"

" _Dunno_! One moment I'm at Eggman's base and the next I'm here! Help me, Knuckles! _I don't wanna die_!" Sonic was pleading, actually pleading, and now hugged the poor piece of wood keeping him from drowning even tighter.

"Okay, okay, relax. You're not gonna die," Knuckles spoke calmingly, aware that while in a state of panic like this he wouldn't get anything out of Sonic anyway. Plus, the water most likely wasn't really warm, so first things first. Get Sonic out of the water, let him calm down, _then_ beat him up for getting you into this mess. This masterplan formed, Knuckles looked around trying to find something he could use to fish the hedgehog out of the huge well.

" _Knuckles! I guess I'm sinking_!"

Watching the emerald eyes fill with even more blind panic, Knuckles idly wondered why he would be sinking now if the branch held him for quite some time before. From what Knuckles could see, the piece of wood was still swimming as neatly as it had a minute ago when he'd come here, so probably Sonic's panicked mind was just playing tricks on him.

"Relax. Deep breaths, okay? I'm getting you out of there."

No reply other than a shaky nod.

Knuckles' search for appropriate fishing equipment ended fruitlessly; there was nothing he could use to pull Sonic over to the edge of the pool and then up. What left only one thing…

"I'll add this to the long list of things that are your fault, hedgehog," Knuckles muttered as he reluctantly pulled off his gloves, shoes and socks.

He slipped into the water with a quick header, resurfaced spitting out the stale, muddy brew and swam up to Sonic. "Let go of your branch and hold on to me, 'kay?"

Sonic merely nodded, but Knuckles took the fact he adapted a steel grip on him as enough of an answer. With a shivering, but elsewise unmoving hedgehog clinging to his back, Knuckles slowly swam back to the nearest wall. Another time in his life he was glad he had been born with sharp spikes on his hands… Sonic wouldn't have gotten out of this thing even if he could swim.

Knuckles climbed carefully; he didn't want to risk dropping his load. It would mean jumping back into the rather cold water and dive after him, and the echidna wasn't too fond of either.

Back up on solid and dry ground, Knuckles found himself caught in a death hug. "Huh?"

Sonic squeezed him even tighter. "Thank you, Knux, you're the best," he mumbled.

In spite of feeling rather intimidated, and the numerous plans for hedgehog execution he'd made up not long ago still somewhat in mind, Knuckles suddenly realized he totally couldn't be mad at him like this. "S'okay, Sonic. Now let go."

"Oh. Uh… sure." The hedgehog stumbled a few steps backwards; the distraught look giving way to one of embarrassment. "I just…"

"I know."

Knuckles could have kicked himself for the soft smile tugging on his lips. But it was true; he'd seen Sonic's inexplicable panic in face of water numerous times, and he knew whatever had caused it, Sonic just couldn't overcome it. Knuckles wasn't anything like a psychologist, but whatever problem Sonic had with water, it was something deeply rooted. And, for once, it couldn't really be Sonic's fault.

Still… "What were you thinking?!"

"What?" Now the hedgehog looked puzzled, one of his still flattened ears tipping up, and his head tilted.

"You damn know what I'm talking about!" Slowly Knuckles could feel the anger coming back to him as the awkwardness left him. "What did you think you were doing teleporting us… wherever we are here?!"

Sonic stared. "Hey, I didn't –"

"Of course you did! You used Chaos Control to get us out of there! And while I generally don't mind not being killed by Eggman's explosions, I _do_ mind ending up on some random apocalyptic field!"

"Apo- what?" Sonic's face was blank confusion. For a moment Knuckles seriously wondered if he could act that well or if his brain was still stuck at 'HolychaosI'mdrowning!'.

The echidna stabbed the index finger of his still ungloved hand at Sonic's chest. "You. Used. Chaos. Control!"

The blue hedgehog vigorously shook his head, drops of water flying from his drenched fur and quills. "Did not!"

"Sure you did! Admit it already!" Knuckles closed the distance between them, glaring into the green eyes.

"No!" Sonic still wasn't returning the glare; he just looked totally confused. "Do you really think I'd chaos control myself into the middle of a pool?!"

"Well, you screwed it up!" Knuckles gripped Sonic by the throat. "You screwed it up and now we're both lost, hedgehog, and this is all your fault!" He shook him. "Just admit it already!"

Sonic coughed. "I can't admit anything I didn't do!"

Knuckled let go of him. Suddenly he didn't know what he should think anymore. Even if Sonic was reckless, did things without using his brains and stuff like that… he'd never lied to him. Knuckles _thought_ he did a couple of times, but in the end it always turned out someone else had been lying to him, not Sonic.

"We'll speak about this later," he decided, turning his back on the hedgehog and walking over to where he'd dropped his clothing.

"Just where in the world are we?", Sonic queried from behind him.

Knuckles finished pulling on his gloves and whirled around. "I don't know!", he snapped, and Sonic just stared back at him, arms folded on his chest.

"Stop looking at me as if I'd just stolen your Emerald, Knucklehead!", he shouted back, apparently starting to get mad as well now. "I didn't do anything!"

Knuckles grumbled. "We'll see about that."


	4. Emerald Entropy

He could go so crazy about this!

Tails' fingers clawed at the fur on top of his head, not that much bothered by his ears due to them lying flattened against his skull so long he feared they might stick that way.

It just didn't make any sense! He'd searched for Sonic and Knuckles, stayed at the base in spite of all risks getting spotted, and hacked into Eggman's systems; he would know if his friends were found. He stayed for hours, and none of Eggman's numerous machines, cameras and infrared sensors found a single piece of a quill. It was as if they'd never been there.

From all Tails could tell, Eggman himself didn't care much where the two intruders to his base went. Either he was fine now that they were apparently not lurking about disturbing him anymore, or he was just too occupied. Tails could almost take bets on the latter; ever since the mysterious explosion the doctor was running an incredible amount of calculations and reviewing all saved data of the experiment. Something had gone wrong, and not even Eggman having built the machine had any actual clue what it was.

After hours of more or less fruitless sitting around hoping to find something, Tails had copied the surveillance protocols and other data related to the experiment and the events in the lab, and looked that he got out of there before he got caught. Staying in Eggman's base that long was pushing his luck anyway. He wouldn't be of any help to Sonic and Knuckles as a prisoner, or worse, the interior of a badnik. Tails wasn't sure if Eggman still put people or animals into his robots, but he didn't really want to find out, especially not if he was to take the role of the robot's living battery.

Having to fly back home alone after they'd come to the base as a team of three felt terrible. Tails knew he didn't have reason to, yet he felt like betraying his two best friends, and it was a horrible feeling. Some part of him hoped they'd gotten out unnoticed and would be waiting for him at the workshop, saying they were hungry and asking where he'd been that long.

Of course they weren't.

Back home in his workshop in the Mystic Ruins, he first of all tried again what he'd tried with his small handheld before: track Sonic's wristlet. The much bigger processing power of his main computer should be able to give out some helpful results…

Tails found he wasn't completely wrong on this, it did give out some results. Results that were at least in so far assuring that there still was a signal, but even with satellite back-up he wasn't able to pinpoint it. It was as if the source of the signal kept bouncing around, sometimes it vanished, sometimes it didn't seem to be on the planet at all anymore, sometimes the machine told Tails the signal was generated inside of Mobius's core. Most of the time the signals he got were so blurry he couldn't even get these useless readings. Nothing made sense, and given the amount of interference he received Tails was considering that nothing of the results was of use to him. There was some kind of radiation strong enough to drown out any sensible signals.

The young fox didn't actually think the transmitter could be damaged. Other than the watch and radio, the transmitter had been constructed to withstand whatever Sonic could put it through. It was water- and fire-proof, could withstand electric shocks enough to kill people, it wouldn't mind vacuum and Tails considered it easier to crush a solid piece of rock than the pinhead-sized device. It used a Chaos Drive kind of battery two times smaller than the transmitter itself with enough energy to operate it for a hundred years.

No, the transmitter wouldn't be down. Tails had installed it in Sonic's wristlet without the hedgehog's knowing. He knew how little his brother liked his privacy; so he'd kept it a secret he could always tell where Sonic was unless he took off the thing. It wasn't meant to control his best friend, anything like that was far beyond Tails. It was his last resort in case of absolute emergency. It was what Tails hoped would help finding Sonic and getting him back granted he was unable to do it on his own, injured or stuck or something equally bad.

He'd never worked the receiver before. Just the one time after making it to assure it worked, and then he'd never used it again so far, promising himself to do so only in absolute emergency. Sonic loved hardly anything as much as his freedom, and Tails wouldn't dream of violating his needs.

Now, with Sonic and Knuckles having disappeared off the face of the planet without a trace, Tails figured he could reasonably claim the emergency to have come; but what he'd designed to be a help in rescuing his friend turned out not very useful.

Tails sighed heavily, fisting his hands and leaning his head on them. He didn't know what to do. He felt alone, totally alone in the world, like the world had continued turning without him and now he was out and on his own. Sonic and Knuckles might be hurt or in danger, and he had no idea how to help them.

A tremble ran through the two-tailed fox as he stared at the computer screens again. This radiation… He'd never seen it before, still he couldn't help but finding something in the structure of the spectrum looked like something else he knew. Something he'd seen before very often. He just couldn't point out what it was.

Abruptly he stood up. He'd first of all build a new tracking device. Maybe his old one just couldn't handle the signal. To be fair, in the back of his mind Tails was aware he was clutching at straws, but if he was sure the transmitter was fine, it had to be a receiver problem, right?

Of course, building a new one was also a great way to stop worrying, not about what was wrong with the transmitter, but what might be wrong with Sonic who'd been carrying it around his wrist. Tails shuddered again. No, he really shouldn't start thinking about that.

* * *

The silence between them was almost as cold as the wind blowing through his wet fur. Sonic wrapped his arms around himself, quietly walking behind Knuckles. He'd tried contacting Tails through the tiny radio set in his watch, but the thing seemed entirely dead, it didn't even show the time or date anymore. Either not water-proof or not explosion-proof. So, now all Sonic did was following his hostile-mooded companion.

It wasn't that he minded arguments; between Knuckles and him things like that sometimes happened on daily basis. Sometimes they got along great for weeks, then they somehow got into several disagreements in a row. So, it was normal, and Sonic quite often even enjoyed their confrontations. In some way both of them needed them from time to time, to let off steam and sort things out, but Sonic really would have liked to know what they were arguing about.

Sure, Knuckles quite often didn't actually approve of Sonic's actions or decisions, but then the hedgehog at least knew what irked the echidna. If he'd done something and Knuckles wasn't fond of his way of doing it, okay. He could defend his decision, Knuckles could tell him it had been stupid or irresponsible or whatever else he usually labelled Sonic's plans. In the end they'd both be a few bruises richer, Sonic would have learned a bit about being more careful and Knuckles a bit about that some situations called for taking risks. It was how it usually went, and in its own, odd way it was good with both of them.

This time however, Sonic had no idea what Knuckles accused him of. The hedgehog had no idea what had happened to them. Being accused innocent hurt, probably it was the only reason Sonic had not punched or kicked or spindashed Knuckles back on the field. He'd felt anything but like picking a fight back there. He'd been very happy to see Knuckles, thankful that he'd rescued him out of this horrid pond… but instead of just doing like Sonic had expected and telling him it was nothing and he should be more careful, Knuckles had thrown accusations at him.

He still felt hurt now, although he tried telling himself he wasn't. Knuckles had just saved his life and being insanely mad at him for blaming stuff on him he didn't do didn't work out the way Sonic wanted it. He was mad, yeah, mad and hurt and a little disappointed, but not as mad as he thought he _should_ be.

Aside of that, he was totally confused. Knuckles wasn't alone on having no idea where he was; and the one thing Sonic could understand about his friend's momentary temper tantrum was that mysteriously landing somewhere was quite an irritating thing. You'd think they were all used to it by now. Maybe it was one of the things you never got used to.

Everything Sonic remembered was Eggman's headquarters, something going wrong with his experiment, the mad scientist retreating in a haste… Something had blown up, and Sonic had run and he knew Knuckles had run as well and then… there was some bright light and he hurt everywhere, the worst being his head. Sonic had assumed it to be the explosion, then he'd suddenly fallen and landed in the middle of that muddy water in the well, luckily half sprawled over one of the loose branches floating in it.

Honestly Sonic didn't remember much between falling into the reservoir and being pulled out by Knuckles, it was all a panicky blur, but as far as he thought, he couldn't have done anything worth Knuckles' anger while stuck there, could he?

Finally pulling his attention from his not very helpful memories and the oddly behaving echidna to the actual situation, Sonic spent a real look around. Wherever 'here' was, it was deserted. It was a rather wide field, the occasional tree every now and then toppled, thrown over by something possessing brute force. At first Sonic assumed a storm, but when he looked at the deeply wet mud, the water standing in between hills and the piles of rubbish, wood and leaves gathered up here and there, it looked more like after a flood.

Looking past Knuckles, Sonic caught sight of a few structures that had once been buildings. He gulped dryly as they walked between the ruins, past a few spots full of candles. The silence hung as heavily in the empty streets as the few ghostly shapes of mist, and Sonic didn't like anything about it.

"My… Just what happened here?", he mumbled, just speaking to put something there to replace the silence.

"I don't know," Knuckles replied in spite of Sonic not having expected him to answer, for now the anger drained from his voice as he spoke quietly. "Whatever it was it destroyed this city and a lot of people got killed. I guess the survivors had to leave the place."

Sonic nodded, not near to appreciating the returning wordlessness but knowing nothing to say.

* * *

Ivo Robotnik slowly rocked back and forth in his large and comfortable chair. It was, of course, an invention of his own; floating through a complex system of ring energy powered anti-gravity engines mounted beneath the seat. A dozen of computer cores worked in sync to immediately adjust to any movement Robotnik made. Every leaning forwards to reach the keyboards, every shift of position theoretically upset the well-calculated balance of the floating chair and the programs had to take immediate action so the designer and user of the genial piece of furniture could go about his work without noticing any of it.

Of course, the Eggmobile worked on a similar system; it was just more balanced by the stronger engines it had in comparison with the chair. The Eggmobile or Egg-O-Matic still remained one of Robotnik's best inventions of all time; it served its loyal purpose for years already. Regardless of the numerous repairs and tweaks it had gone through, usually after confrontations with a certain blue hedgehog, nothing else had lasted as long.

His newest idea however wasn't looking like a near as successful concept. He'd miscalculated something… Robotnik hated miscalculations. He hated it when things didn't go according to plans. And he hated it if this terrible blue descendent of a spiked woodland creature was the reason his plans went awry.

It happened way too often.

Even if once more Sonic was to blame for a machine's failure, Robotnik had found out by now the Mobian hedgehog wasn't the only reason. It might have been a very unfortunate accident the robot the hedgehog had struck had been hurtled right into the sensitive energy converter. Okay. That was really bad luck… But the damage on the aforementioned converter _should_ have only resulted in no energy reaching the cannon. Instead, what had happened in his laboratory had been a chaos blast of a nature he had never seen before. Had not even thought was possible.

The thing that had actually failed, fatally failed, wasn't the stupid converter. It was his wormhole generator. The entire thing, the core of his plan. The effects he had caused had clearly done a lot of things… but they had not opened any wormhole, let alone any controllable one. _Something_ had caused the Chaos Emerald in combination with his machines to give out a vast amount of radiation, energy. For a moment, it had completely messed up the structure of space and time.

Luckily the effect had been local, just inflicted on the laboratory. Retreat had been possible. Since there was no trace of a hair or quill in the entire base, Robotnik assumed the blue pincushion and his knuckleheaded buddy had made it out in time as well. Robotnik snorted. With the hedgehog's notorious super speed, it should have been easily possible escaping the blow.

Screw the hedgehog having escaped. Sonic, for now, wasn't actually of any importance. What irked Robotnik the most was that his explanations, or attempts thereof, had to contain a 'something'. _Something_ had caused the Chaos Emerald in his machine to let out an unknown form of energy. _Something_. Robotnik hated that word. It was… unspecific, _unscientific_. He was a better scientist to rely on words like ' _something_ '.

Or that was what he liked to think of himself.

Those blasted Chaos Emeralds and their incredible entropy. It was what Robotnik still has to admit after all those years of research, whoever had named those powerful gemstones had struck a chord with the term, even though they apparently had been either suffering from a severe case of colour-blindness or had known nothing about gemstones and the terminology concerning different sorts of them. Emeralds were green, and only two of the Chaos Emeralds were green, if you counted the Master Emerald as one.

Still, the first part of the name they gave the crystals ridiculously fit. Chaos Emeralds. Chaos. Even after years of research, they remained exactly that. Chaos. Unpredictable. And that was what made them useless to him, even after all this _experience_ you'd think he should have with them by now. Useless for any scientific purpose, useless for building machines that would need to _rely_ on them.

There had to be another way. The light blue Chaos Emerald, retrieved from the laboratory after the effects settled down and everything had returned to normal, now lay securely locked away in the base's main vault. And for now, Robotnik was decided to leave it there. Its own fault if it didn't cooperate.

He had decided to rely on rings. Similar properties, similar energy, but much less savage. Already now, he'd sent out dozens of robots to go around and collect the golden rounds wherever they spotted them appearing. His work, for now, was completing the cannon, and construct a power-storing device of a capacity that would be sufficient to allow the cannon's operation even over a prolonged period of time and still be small enough for transportation, now that the idea of teleporting it or drilling a pathway through the very structure of space-time had failed. For now, Ivo didn't feel like trying again.

Instead, his gloved fingers rushed over his keyboards eagerly. He would start with point one on his list, and there was no need wasting time. A planet was waiting to be conquered, right?


	5. Time Lag

Hours had passed and they had left the destruction behind. Walking through a more or less healthy looking forest, Sonic felt his spirits lifting again. His fur had dried and his mind was doing its best trying to forget the most of what he'd seen. He was good at that; it was one of the first things he'd learned years ago when starting to fight Eggman when he was basically a child.

They still hadn't really spoken; Knuckles wanted answers as to where they were and what had happened and Sonic couldn't give him any satisfactory replies. At least, granted that no-one said anything, they hadn't ended up in another argument. They just walked, and that was, by Sonic's definition, very boring.

In lack of anything else to do, and admittedly wanting to get answers as much as Knuckles did, Sonic let his eyes sharply roam anything they passed. The hedgehog spent a good deal of his time travelling around, so he thought he knew a lot of places all over Mobius and would probably recognize something sooner or later. So far nothing about this forest was outstanding enough to ring any bells, though.

The forest opened to another field and Knuckles stopped walking. Stepping up to the echidna's side, Sonic gazed over the hilly landscape before them. The air was still hazy with mist, the clouds hung low and you could only guess the slightly darker than sky silhouettes in the distance to be mountains. Glazing carpets of water standing between the gentle hills told him the flood that had wiped out the town they'd seen earlier had also passed by here, but maybe not with the same force. Directly beneath the hill Sonic and Knuckles stood on, a small group of houses nestled up against the bushes on the forest's borderline. A winding, apparently paved road led up to the settlement and lost itself in the haze, somewhere on the way towards the distant mountains.

"Do you think someone lives there?", Sonic wondered. Talking to possible inhabitants could maybe help them find out where they were and what was going on around here.

Knuckles nodded, pointing towards the houses. "There's smoke coming from one of the chimneys."

Looking more closely, Sonic had to admit the echidna was right. A small pume of smoke was floating upwards from an outlet in the roof.

"You're right. How about we go down there and ask them for the way to the next place that sells chilli dogs?" Knuckles shot him a glare from under a quirked eyebrow and Sonic smirked as he quickly added "Or anywhere else you feel like going."

Knuckles nodded quietly and started slowly down the hill. Sonic followed and they had finished almost half of the way when Knuckles stopped, causing Sonic to bump into him.

"Hey!"

The red echidna remained unfazed in spite of Sonic running into him. Confused as of this lack of proper reaction, especially from someone with a temper as bad as the red guardian, Sonic followed the direction of Knuckles' stare.

Down below, two persons had just come out of one of the houses, carrying heavy-looking bails. Obviously, it wasn't their work that had caused Knuckles to open-mouthedly stare at them; but Sonic had already covered the reason, and honestly he could understand his friend's shocked look. Long, thick spines fell from the strangers' heads around their shoulders in a way just like Knuckles' own.

The two down there were echidnas.

And… echidnas were extinct. Knuckles was the last survivor of his clan, the rest had all vanished throughout the course of history. It was known all over Mobius that there really weren't any others. Everybody knew that. But…

Sonic shook his head. "Just where the heck _are_ we?"

"I…" Knuckles could just shake his head in disbelief.

Of course, to him the sight of the two down there had to be a much bigger shock than to Sonic. The hedgehog was just confused; Knuckles looked ready to doubt his sanity.

"But you see them, too, right?"

Sonic nodded. "Yeah. Two _living_ echidnas." He threw a side-glance at his friend. "If we still want to find out what's going on we'll have to ask them."

"Yeah, sure… I just…"

"Come on." Sonic smiled a little and gently shoved Knuckles towards the settlement or farm or whatever it was. It was time for the hedgehog to make decisions, if he wanted to wait for Knuckles' brain to catch up, they'd grow roots here.

Knuckles didn't resist, he just stumbled alongside Sonic.

"Do you want me to talk?", the blue hedgehog asked, not really sure if Knuckles would have pulled himself together until they reached the houses. The echidna's head made a movement that could as well have been nod or shake and Sonic decided to just improvise. He was good at that.

They walked past a building that seemed to be some sort of stable to Sonic when the farm echidnas finally noticed their visitors.

Sonic waved a hand in greeting. "Good morning! Sorry to just bump in here like that, but we're searching for the way…" The hedgehog didn't know if the phrase had been anything like smart, it seemed a sensible one to him… if you put the little fact aside he had no idea what time of day it was.

Apparently the place's inhabitants didn't have any liking for his casual greeting phrase; one of them pointed a finger at the two newcomers. "Tana kizupo-ten opelug!", he shouted.

Sonic stared at him. "What?"

Knuckles at his side stood as if frozen, mouth open and eyes wide. Sonic gave up on expecting anything helpful from his friend at the moment.

"Tana kizupo-ten opelug!", the stranger repeated, more urgent this time. Stirred up by the shouting, a handful of other echidnas rushed out of the nearest house, gathering around the first. While Sonic generally didn't mind attracting a crowd very much, the fact they held spears, bows and arrows and were now waving their weaponry at them wasn't a very pleasing notion. "Tana kizupo-ten opelug!"

_I heard you_ , Sonic thought, a little annoyed by not understanding anything the guy said. Although he didn't seem to vary his message much…

"Kazuto aka tana!"

Sonic's eyes widened and his head whirled around to Knuckles answering the echidna. "You can _understand_ that?"

Knuckles nodded briefly. "He says we're plunderers and vandals."

"Oh. You told him we're not, right?" Sonic turned back to the group of echidnas.

"Of course. I –" Knuckles had to interrupt himself when a pair of spears was flung at them. The red echidna dived for cover.

Sonic took half a step to the right, eyes firmly locked on the wooden projectile and let his hand snap out at it when it whooshed past him. The jolt the spear's momentum carried along caused the hedgehog to do one revolution on the spot before finding a fast stand again.

Sonic had caught things tougher to catch than this one; little rockets for example. A lot faster and with a hot end you better didn't touch. Being born with superspeed meant having the reflexes necessary for not running into stuff at this speed, and fast relexes were helpful not only for running and dodging, but also for catching anything you wanted. Sonic didn't really consider it a feat.

The group of spear-throwers however seemed another matter; for a moment a whisper ran through their lines and ten pairs of eyes stared at Sonic driving the tip of the weapon into the ground in front of his feet. When he let go, the wooden stick vibrated with the force of the move.

Briefly the hedgehog glanced at Knuckles who was crawling back to his feet. "Are you sure they believe you?"

"Umm…" Knuckles frowned for a second. "Sonic!"

The blue hedgehog fully turned back to the not very hospitable group. Apparently, the awe about Sonic's catch had passed, and now they were shouting and pointing their weapons at the two friends again. "Uh, do you think they're mad at us? I didn't even smash their toy!"

"I don't really want to fight them," Knuckles noticed, violet eyes scanning their opponents for anything that would tell him they'd openly attack. "Whatever they think of us, they might have a reason to mistrust people. Maybe someone was here that did something to them, before we came. I... wouldn't _want_ to hurt them. They're... _echidnas_..."

Sonic nodded. "Fine. We didn't come for a fight, anyway, and –" Before the hedgehog could go on, he had to jump aside to dodge an arrow aimed for him. "Okay, if we don't fight, we're outta here!" He held his hand out at Knuckles and the red echidna understood instantly. Taking a hold around Sonic's wrist, he was a flung along when the hedgehog ran off.

It took the echidnas just a second to realize the presumed vandals were taking flight, then they were on their heels, wielding their weapons and screaming bloody murder.

Sonic didn't push himself the least bit. He knew he was out of reach, and if an arrow should still reach him, the shield of air forming around him as soon as he ran, twirling the air in his wake with the downwash from his streamlined spikes and building a protective cushion before him and towards his sides protected him from worst harm.

Additionally, the guys on their heels were _slow_. To be fair, almost everything was slow on Sonic's terms. Still, he knew he could be out of sight in the blink of an eye. He didn't want to. He kept a pace just barely above theirs for a couple of minutes, not showing them yet his speed surpassed theirs with ease, then when he thought it was enough he gradually sped up until he could neither hear their shouting anymore nor see them when checking over his shoulder.

Slowing to a halt, he allowed Knuckles to regain his feet. "Jeez. Not really nice to visitors, are they?"

Knuckles shrugged, looking back the way they'd just come. "I guess they have their reasons."

For once, Sonic decided not to question that. "So, now what? Do we follow this road we saw a while ago? Usually roads lead somewhere. Maybe we'll find someone less unhappy with us," Sonic suggested.

Knuckles shook his head. "Maybe later. For now… Do you even understand what that means?"

"What what means?" Sonic tipped his head aside, purposefully playing a little dumb.

"They. They're echidnas!" Knuckles wildly gestured at him. "And as we all know, I am the last. All others are extinct."

"Well, apparently they're not… at least, not here." Sonic frowned. "Wherever 'here' is."

"Sonic what if…" Knuckles gasped as if the concept only just now occured to him. "What if this is something like what Tikal did to us? What if we're in –"

"The past?" Sonic folded his arms, watching his left foot quickly tap on the ground. It was a habit, and in a way he was sure it helped him think.

Knuckles shrugged, but his eyes were blazing. "Holy chaos, I don't know!"

"Yeah, okay, chill out..." Sonic waved a hand in what he hoped would pass as a calming gesture and nodded. "If we're time travellers, we have to be careful not to cause paradoxes and stuff…"

"Para-whats?" Knuckles blinked.

"Paradoxes," Sonic repeated. "Didn't you ever watch any of these movies? With the people ending up in another time and then having to find a way back? A paradox is really bad; I guess it destroys the universe or something. It'd be something like… killing your parents. That way, you prevent that you're being born and then you don't exist and –"

"If I don't exist how could I do time travels and kill anyone?", Knuckles interrupted.

"That's it!" Sonic nodded again. "That's a paradox." Actually, Sonic felt proud of himself for being able to explain it well enough for Knuckles to grasp the concept. Tails never managed that.

"Ah." The echidna fell silent for a moment. "So, how do the people in the movies get back to their time? Granted it applies to us in some way?"

Sonic shrugged. "Oh, most of the time they bring their time machine with them, or they have to find something that'll take them back home."

Knuckles grimaced. "Great. Then think of a way to get us back home, hedgehog."

"Me?" Sonic's ears twitched.

"Of course _you_ ," Knuckles snapped. "You got us here with your screwed-up Chaos Control attempt, so you'll repair the damage!"

Angrily Sonic took a step closer to the echidna. "Stop saying it was me! I didn't –"

"I don't wanna hear it, hedgehog! You did and we're stuck here and the natives want to _lynch_ us." Knuckles turned away from Sonic, climbing onto a large round pebble lying on the open field.

"And what do you think you're doing there, huh?!", Sonic snapped back at him, still tapping a foot as he watched Knuckles settle down as if he was preparing to start a camp here.

"We'll wait until dark. That's safer. While we're here, you can start thinking of a way out of this mess again."

Sonic drew a deep breath, swallowing his anger for now. He didn't want to fight with Knuckles, not now, even if the echidna was behaving like an ignorant idiot at the moment and didn't listen to him. He was right about the darkness, and a bit of thinking maybe wouldn't hurt… although Sonic felt like anything but keeping still right now.

Bottled-up anger at Knuckles, the still apparent confusion about their odd displacement, starting worry about getting home at all and no idea how to solve either of these problems… It was all pulling at Sonic's nerves and he felt anxious, nervous… and something else he couldn't name. His body wanted to run, to burn off some of the irritating feelings, and his head had no idea what it wanted.

It was all so very confusing.

* * *

The pre-noon sun was filling the hangar with bright light. Tails was leaning over a box of cables. He was almost done, just needed to make a few more connections and –

"Hello Tails!"

"Chaoooo!"

"Ahhh!" The fox jumped at the voice behind him and span round, staring with wide open eyes at the girl before him. Long ears hung down each side of her head and, a little smaller than him, she looked up at him with gentle brown eyes.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," she apologized in a high, but soft and careful voice, timidly rubbing the tip of her left foot along the floor. "The door was open and –"

Quickly gathering his wits, Tails smiled. "Hello Cream and Cheese! Don't worry, it's okay. I just didn't hear you come in."

"We didn't make much of noise, did we Cheese?" The rabbit girl giggled.

"Chao chaaaaooooo!" The little blue chao fluttered around her before flopping into Tails' arms.

Catching the tiny creature by reflex, the fox smiled again as he did as asked for and started petting Cheese. "No, you sure didn't. Maybe it was also that I was busy."

"You're always busy, Tails." Cream nodded her head importantly. "Do you show us what you're building there?"

"Um… sure." Holding one arm around Cheese who'd snuggled contently into Tails' fur and didn't seem to plan moving away from there anytime soon, the two-tailed fox gestured at what was an almost finished tracking device.

An hour later, he'd not only explained to Cream how it worked, but also all the circumstances having called for its construction. Talking about his worries made him feel a little better, and despite being two years younger than him Cream had always been a great listener. Tails didn' think she understood even a third of what he said, but she still listened, and that was all he needed right now.

"Where do you think Mister Sonic and Mister Knuckles are, Tails?", the bunny wondered, by now her chao sitting in her lap.

Tails shook his head. "I really don't know." He sighed. "I can't make anything of the readings I got, that's why I build this new machine. I hope it works better. For example, the power consumption is proportional to the distance they're away from us, that gives us one thing we know for sure even if everything else still doesn't make any sense…"

"But maybe it will and then we'll know where they are and can take the Tornado to save them!" Cream beamed, excitement twinkling in her brown eyes.

Tails wasn't as optimistic anymore. He had already given up on the thought it could be that simple. "We'll have to try it out…"

Cream nodded enthusiastically. "Then let's do it!"

For a second Tails had to bite back a laugh at the sound of this little girl mimicking one of Sonic's standard phrases.

"Alright," he grinned.

Another half an hour later, the two-tailed fox and his two eager but clueless assistants had everything ready to start. Watched by an excited Cream, Tails switched the power on. With a soft humming, the machine came online and Tails entered the frequency pattern of the locator in Sonic's wristlet.

"Now let's see…"

The moment Tails' finger pressed down on the button to start the search, two things happened simultaneously. The humming grew to almost deafening level, and all other electrical devices in the workshop went out. A second later, with a loud bang also the tracking machine shut down violently. Suddenly it was silent, and the puff of smoke rising up from the tracking device hung in the air above it, as if frozen in a moment of time, then the smoke dissipated and the space it left looked strangely empty. Like a hole in the air. Tails stared at in mesmerized shock.

Having jumped back with a small scream, hugging Cheese to her chest, Cream gaped at the now dead device. "Did we do something wrong, Tails?!"

Numbly the fox shook his head. He was rather sure he made no mistakes… "I don't know, Cream. I'll have to look at it all, then I can find out what happened…"

Or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speedy's note: With regard to echidnas being extinct, remember that like most other things I write and wrote, this story is set before Sonic Chronicles.


	6. Chaos Superposition

"Could you stop this? It's making me nervous."

Sonic turned his head to where Knuckles sat atop a big, round pebble. "No."

The echidna groaned. "Nice you're interested in my well-being…"

"Great you're interested in mine," Sonic snapped, not stopping his pacing, even though it forced him to constantly turn his head to look at his companion while walking in circles. "I can't."

Knuckles swallowed a grunt. "As if you're gonna die if you stand still for just a moment."

"Yeah, maybe I will, you know?" Sonic glared at him. "I'm just gonna go _crazy_!"

"And that would be much of a change?", Knuckles muttered, but Sonic decided to overhear him.

"You don't understand! I feel like I'm… you know when they say someone has itchy feet? Well, I don't have itchy feet, I have itchy everything at the moment! My whole body's filled with… I dunno, but it wants out! It's driving me nuts! It's so… it almost physically hurts!" The blue hedgehog gestured wildly, trying to explain his problems to Knuckles.

"And is it my fault you're stir-crazy, or stressed out, or whatever you are?" The echidna folded his arms, looking rather annoyed.

"You're not helping with it, insisting we stay here. I so need a good run!" Sonic kicked the ground.

"Well, if those guys from a while ago find you back they're gonna give you a good run for sure," Knuckles noticed dryly.

"Puh! I outrun them going _backwards_." Sonic spat out the last word of the retort.

"Maybe you even will, but that doesn't change you freaking chaos controlled us to a random place in what looks like ten thousand years ago or something! This is your damn fault, hedgehog. You should practice your chaos teleporting before you use it on people around you that have much more important things to do that get lost at – wherever we are here!" Knuckles had jumped down from his rock while ranting and now stood facing Sonic, who barely managed to stop pacing before walking right into the red echidna.

"I didn't do anything!"

"You always do, because you happen to be a reckless idiot that doesn't think before charging spikes-first into death traps!" Knuckles' violet gaze pierced into Sonic's.

The hedgehog fisted his hands, trying to keep himself from punching Knuckles in the face right now and here. In spite of his anger, there was some kind of common sense left telling him a fight wouldn't solve this. Not now. Not this time. "How often do I need to tell you?! I. Did. Not. Use. Chaos. Control!" He waved both arms at Knuckles to emphasize his words. "And I can prove it!"

The echidna cocked an eyebrow. "Oh really?"

"Yes! Just think about it! Do I have any Emeralds with me?" Sonic span around on the spot once, showing himself to make sure Knuckles could see he didn't have any sparkly magic gems tucked away into his spines or something.

"Umm… no?" Knuckles tilted his head and still looked rather annoyed.

Sonic however had him finally where he wanted him. "HA! See? Now think about it: Have you ever seen me doing Chaos Control without an Emerald?"

"Uh. No?" Knuckles frowned. "But as we all know through Shadow it's possible…"

Sonic groaned aloud. "Oh, do I look anything like that hyper-chaos-infused-test-tube hedgehog-clone with the charm of an ice cube?"

Knuckles still frowned, but Sonic spotted a mock look on his face. "Well, technically… I can sort of see the resemblance…" Being shot a death glare, the echidna continued a little soothingly. "… If we forget about the colour, or the shape of spines, or the dumb grin that usually is on your face…"

Sonic felt the 'dumb grin' tug on his lips. "You barely avoided losing a life there."

"'Lose a life'? Just one?" Knuckles chuckled, a bit of the tension ebbing away. "So, how many lives do I have in this place, anyway?"

"Dunno, for the sake of our both security let's assume we're still granted just one each and be happy in case we're wrong, okay?" Sonic smiled, pointy blue ears twitching amusedly.

Shaking his head, Knuckles stepped out of Sonic's way and retreated back to his seating position on the large stone. "You're crazy... But I believe you."

Sonic sighed. "Good. Now that we've established that our being here is not my chaos-mighty screw-up, can we probably try getting behind whose it is?"

"Hey, don't look at me like that!", Knuckles protested. "I never did any Chaos Control teleporting whatsoever either!"

"Well, technically," Sonic mimicked, "You're the only guy I know capable of using this mega-huge thing of a rock on your island, so maybe you got a whole bunch of awesome secret super powers and aren't telling anybody." Sonic chuckled, but stopped quickly, shooting a glance at his long-years friend when Knuckles remained silent. "Have you?"

The guardian shrugged vaguely. "Depends on how you define 'awesome secret super powers'."

Sonic stared. "Oh… eh, fine. But you're sure you didn't – totally on accident of course – beam us to this nice place here?" Receiving a glare, Sonic shrugged. "No offence, just asking."

"Eh, right. So, if neither of us is responsible for our being here, who did it?" Knuckles' face turned thoughtful.

"Well, we were in Eggman's base. We'd left Tails at this computer terminal, and Tails wouldn't do anything like this." Sonic paused, for a second halting his anew pacing. "Hope little guy's alright."

"I'm sure he is." Knuckles smiled softly, by now having given up on his attempt making Sonic stop running in circles in front of him.

"What leaves just Eggman," Sonic continued. "And knowing him, he could be able to build a weird kind of robot or apparatus to send us here."

Knuckles leaned back a little, following Sonic's circling course with his eyes. "I don't claim being an expert, but from all experience has taught me about Eggman and his machines… Wouldn't a thing capable of teleporting the two of us who knows how far be pretty big and stuff?"

Sonic shrugged. He'd contemplated the idea himself. "Yeah, you got a point there. But really, there were a bunch of weird looking things in there, with glowiness and everything. I've learned to mistrust everything that glows, especially if Eggman's involved with it."

Slowly, the echidna nodded his head. "I see what you're getting at. Neither of us is quite the technical genius; I must admit to me most of his things look all the same."

The blue hedgehog chuckled, sheepishly rubbing the base of his neck. "Same here. I never really cared, actually. I see an Eggman machine trying to kill me and bust it. That's the deal."

"So, maybe he really had something that made us disappear and land here. Unfortunately, this doesn't help us much." Knuckles shot Sonic a stern look. "How do we make it get us back?"

Once again, all Sonic could do was shrug. "Y'know, maybe it helps us if we find out where we are, first?"

"I'm not sure, really." Knuckles shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Some of the buildings looke like the ones I remember seeing during the visions I had when Tikal came to help us against Chaos."

Sonic scratched his head. "I mostly saw the Temple of Chaos in flames, but it was looking… less damaged than it does now. Maybe you should improve your house-keeping. – Just joking."

Merely blinking at Sonic's comment, the red echidna just kept talking. "I saw more than that. I found a tunnel through which you could go to what looked like part of a city, with lots of buildings and all that. And a lot of echidnas…"

Stopping when a flight of sympathy stroke him for his friend being the last of his kind, Sonic looked up at him, trying to get back to the actual subject matter. "You could walk from the Temple of Chaos to a big kind of city?"

Knuckles nodded. "Yeah. Nowadays there's only a forest with a few walls hidden under bushes and moss up until the edge of the island…" He stopped, staring at the blue hedgehog. "The space from the meadow hosting the temple up to the edge of Angel Island is not near big enough for a city like that."

Folding his arms, Sonic watched his foot tapping the ground for a moment before focussing on Knuckles again. "You once said something like that Angel Island didn't always fly around. I mean, that makes sense; islands don't naturally fly around, do they? Sure, platforms do, Tails says because of rings appearing inside the ground or something, I didn't get it."

Running a hand through his dreads, Knuckles seemed thoughtful again. "Angel Island floats by the power of the Master Emerald, and the Emerald is a relic told to be older than any civilization, maybe older than the world itself."

"The world itself?", Sonic interrupted. "How is that even possible? How can the Emerald exist if the world doesn't?"

Knuckles shrugged, giving a grunt of annoyance. "Heck, Sonic, I don't know! Now do you want to hear it or not?"

Nodding vigorously, the hedgehog smiled. "Yes, Sir. I'll pipe down from now on and be a good kid!"

Shaking his head, the echidna smirked, but continued. "Fine. The Chronicles I found in Angel Island's ancient library aren't too sure on the subject. Some chroniclers claim the island to have been levitating in the skies since the beginning of time. Others speak of a natural catastrophe – the impact of a big comet – that threatened the survival of our society and some chose to build a refuge in the sky to escape it, while others stayed on the surface and died. Some say something that sounded like an experiment or weapon project gone wrong to me caused a backfiring of Master Emerald power that ripped the island out of the planet's surface and made it fly; and there are some that claim it to be a result of Perfect Chaos' wrath that came upon Pachacamac's clan."

For a moment given the heard some thought, Sonic nodded his head. "Well, the majority seems to think something caused it to fly, so maybe we could be at a time before that first time of it flying around and what looked familiar to you is a part of Angel Island before it became Angel Island?" He frowned in thought. "Wow, when it got ripped out of the ground, it must've left quite a hole behind. Maybe it's a lake now or something?"

Knuckles nodded, looking fascinated and disturbed at the same time. "Yeah, possible. If we could prove for sure either what year it is or if we can clearly identify a building that belongs to Angel Island or something, we know at least where we are." He paused, looking sober again. "Although I don't see how that'll help us."

Sonic shrugged. "Stop being so negative. We'll see about that later! One step at a time, right?" The doubtful look he met however didn't really make the hedgehog think his friend agreed with his optimism.

* * *

"Yes! That's it!" The triumphant cry echoed through the wide room with its metallic walls. Robotnik's hand slipped down to press a rather small, green button on his large desk, then he leaned back in his chair, folded his hands over the belly whose shape had given him his nickname, and waited.

Just a minute passed until the door of the planning room slid open almost soundlessly and a small robot walking inside, the glowing optics on the round head fixed on Robotnik and its left hand held up, balancing a silver plate. The little robot stopped next to his creator's seat, and the scientist took the tablet, placed it on the table and gave his small creation a pat on the round head. It let out a small, beeping noise, before folding into a small heap next to his seat and table, awaiting further commands in standby.

Robotnik took a sip of the warm coffee in the big mug, of course shaped in his own design, the handle a stylized nose with a moustache painted on the cup around the handle, then he picked up the large sandwich lying next to it and allowed himself a huge bite.

He looked onto the concept plan on the screen in front of him while he chewed his lunch. Finally, the device to move the large cannon was ready for the assembly. As soon as he finished eating, he would see to the construction of the robot vehicle, strong and with impressive off-the-road capabilities. The teleportation idea had failed him, and he had decided to rely to good old fashioned, but reliable methods for now. Sometimes the tradional way was the best, even for machines to help you conquer the world.

And in just a short time, he would be able to test the cannon in the open for the first time. Granted the power cells would be at least in a beta state at that time, so they were his next focus after the vehicle.

Robotnik finished his sandwich and reached for the mug again, slowly enjoying the coffee. No matter the drawbacks of a few days ago, at the moment everything was going according to plans. Plans that had needed changing, but no matter. In a few more days, Mobius better prepared for a new ruler and no election. He put down the empty coffee mug and laughed.

* * *

Groggily Tails let his head drop onto his desk, or more specifically onto the pile of paper scribbled full of equations and calculations. Cream had left in the afternoon, knowing that she couldn't help him anyway.

The fox sighed, forcing himself to sit upright again and once more face the paper. He knew by now that his tracking device had short-circuited because of too high energy demands leading to an unwanted voltage peak. He also knew that this meant wherever his two friends were now was very far off; but before he knew exactly where they were and most importantly how to get them back, he couldn't start any real action.

He was running in circles. Had been doing so ever since he'd started. Tails sighed again. This was one of the disadvantages of being the smartest guy in their group. Scientifically smart, anyway. It wasn't that the others were dumb.

Sonic could analyze a sudden situation, his own momentum and the effects a movement he did would have on whatever he was doing within the blink of an eye. It would take Tails at least minutes to calculate all of that. Sonic knew all these things without calculating. It was a special sort of smart.

The blue hedgehog was also pretty quick understanding things. If he listened, anyway. The main problem with Sonic and understanding stuff was that he hardly ever listened because something shiny or more amusing was always distracting him from actually using his intelligence. Sometimes Tails was sure Sonic would understand how his inventions worked, or even did, but didn't take the time to do anything with this knowledge.

Tails was also sure that Knuckles was actually quite intelligent, or at least not as stupid as people thought he was occassionally. He was just like a fish out of the water outside his island and things he knew. Still, Knuckles was a walking encyclopaedia for everything concerning history. Name something and he knew at least a bit about it. On some occasions Tails had wondered how many languages the echidna understood. He could read hieroglyphs nobody else could, and spoke at least an old echidna language and the language everybody around spoke. It was a mystery to Tails how he'd learned speaking at all, growing up without people around.

Knuckles also knew a lot about herbs to be used for healing, or about the treatment of injuries as well. Tails had never asked how he knew these things. Probably read up on it while living all on his own in old texts left behind by his extinct ancestors. That would mean Tails and Knuckles had a certain sense of curiosity in common, and a liking to reading stuff.

Still, his two friends weren't there. Not that they would be of much help… and if they were here, the help wouldn't be needed…

Brushing the papers aside in a gesture of defeat, Tails crossed out some more names from the mental list of friends and allies. Cream was still too small to know anything but flowers and chao; Big was friendly but not the smartest; Amy had only one thing on her mind and it wasn't science; Shadow or Rouge could hardly be considered even allies and Tails doubted either of them would be thrilled to help him out. Blaze wouldn't hesitate to do what she could to help him, but she was in her own dimension… even farther off than Knuckles and Sonic… Well, hopefully.

Tails groaned. He needed someone to discuss his equations with, someone giving actual input. He was stuck; a little brainstorming would probably help out.

Slowly walking towards the window, the little fox realized he'd sat over his work long enough for the stars to come up. Now billions of small lights twinkled down on Mystic Ruins.

… Stars… Tails' drooping namesakes almost jumped off from dragging across the floor and started to twirl exitedly behind his back. Stars… Why had he forgotten about his scatter-brained, but in his own way genial buddy? A grin slipped onto the two-tailed fox' face as he raced for his phone. He didn't waste a look to read the clock. Midnight was the perfect time to call this guy.

* * *

The clouds of earlier had lifted, allowing the moon to pour its pale light over the landscape. Sonic watched the faintly glowing shapes the remaining clouds formed against the background of the starry sky. There wasn't much wind either.

Returning his gaze to the path, Sonic found, in spite of the nervous-making situation and everything, the place bore an utter beauty. The moonlight caused the stony pavement of the road to glaze in silvery light, an effect that was even more visible on the wetness of the grass or the occasional trees. Far in the distance, what he'd already guessed before to be mountains was now a dark grey shape, the few clearly recognizable summits surrounded by rings of mist shining in a soft grey colour.

They were currently headed for these mountains and a short glance to his left told Sonic Knuckles was also looking at them. Another few minutes passed in silence, both of them just walking and taking in what was to be seen, but the atmosphere was actually rather relaxed between them. Sonic had gotten Knuckles to understand and accept their being here wasn't up to anything he did, and that the echidna didn't blame anything on him anymore was enough for Sonic to forget the whole thing.

Another glace at his friend got Sonic to spot a small frown on his features. In itself, that wasn't so abnormal, sometimes the hedgehog used to think Knuckles frowned as much as Sonic himself grinned or smiled. But over the years of knowing each other, Sonic had learned to read the guardian, his eyes, his face, the little twitch of a muscle. Most often it was all you would get out of him, but having gotten quite a good observer for these things, Sonic could tell when Knuckles grinned inwardly while his face would just show a faint smile. Just the same way he could recognize a Knuckles-smile through the twinkle in his eyes, they were also a good way to tell other emotions. Anger made the violet color of his eyes appear a little darker, harder. Fear made his eyes widen, and if just a tiny bit. Confusion usually caused small motions of his eyebrows, something you could generally observe if the echidna was thinking hard. He was now, his jaw working almost unnoticeably and those purple eyes moving over the mountains at the horizon.

Feeling his own eyebrows lower a little, Sonic studied his friend's expression for another moment, contemplating whether or not he should ask him what was on his mind. Experience had taught him though quite often a question like that would gain not much more than a comment to mind his own business. Still, it had also taught him that Knuckles, granted he really had some problems to think about, would eventually speak. Sometimes it took days or weeks until he spilled, but something told Sonic he wouldn't need to wait that long.

Deciding to stay silent and wait things out for once, Sonic returned his attention to himself. With the argument solved and given they were finally on the move again, he actually felt a lot better than before. Sure, he would like to know what was going on as much as Knuckles, but it wasn't really his style worrying much. If they had landed in another dimension or time, fine. It wasn't that something like that had never happened before.

Tails and himself had once stranded in Blaze's world; they still didn't really know how they'd landed there. In the end, they'd found a way to get back. Sonic himself had been stuck in a story book, not just once, but twice, and he'd always gotten back. Then, Dr. Eggman had split the planet into pieces upon unleashing the Dark Gaia monster from the planet's core. Not as expected, in the end the planet had been fully restored.

No, given his experiences, landing in a strange place through strange circumstances couldn't actually unsettle Sonic anymore. It made him think, and probably a little worried, but in the end he thought this just helped him finding a way to get things fixed again.

He just didn't know how. Yet. But seriously… wouldn't it be really boring to know everything right in the beginning of something? Sonic found he could very well just see what happened and then make the best of it.

So, the hedgehog felt pretty much in peace with himself and the world by the time his ears caught the sound of Knuckles clearing his throat. "Sonic?"

Looking back at him, Sonic smiled a little. Sooner than he thought… "Yeah?"

"You remember what we said about Angel Island?", Knuckles started, still not looking at Sonic.

"Sure. I don't know how I got the idea to ask for it anymore and I'm not sure if anything made sense, but I remember." He chuckled and spotted a brief smile dart over Knuckles' serious face.

"I guess we were talking about something totally different…" The red echidna nodded. "Still… Do you see those mountains?"

Sonic grinned. "They're a little big to miss, don't you think? I mean, they're everywhere… over there."

"Sure." Knuckles grunted. "But look at these to the left. The ones that are somewhat smaller and more conical?"

Following the direction of Knuckles' outstretched arm, Sonic finally spotted what the echidna meant. Closer to them than the rest of the mountains a group stuck out, separated not only by what could very well be a couple miles from the rest of the mounts, but they were also distinctively less high and a little rounder. "Yeah, I got them. What's up with them?"

"Take the second summit from the right and look about a finger-broad lower. What do you see?"

Against the dark blue sky, the mountain appeared like a giant form in concrete blackness. Just like for nearly all natural things, its slopes weren't straight, right were Knuckles' finger pointed there was a sharp, tooth-shaped bump.

Sonic narrowed his eyes. "There's a ledge or a cliff of sorts."

"Yeah." Knuckles nodded again. "I'm rather sure by now I have stood on this cliff overlooking the forest below more often than I can count."

Sonic's head snapped to his friend. "You mean…?"

"I wouldn't say anything if I wasn't pretty sure." Knuckles' eyes finally moved away from the distance to focus on Sonic. "And the Master Emerald is there. I guess…"

Now it was Sonic's turn to frown. "You _guess_? Since when do you need _guessing_ when it comes to this thing? You _speak_ shiny rock, don't you? Sometimes I'm tempted to think you understand it better than me. Or someone else, for that matter."

Knuckles shook his head and there was something like desperation in his eyes now. "I don't know. I think I feel it, but it's nothing like it used to. It's nothing like anything I ever felt. I've tried, really. I've tried to feel it, tried to hear it. Sometimes, when I really concentrate on it, I can hear it _sing_. Without a sound, just in my mind, but it sings.

"I can't hear it now. I can tell it is there, somewhere. I can tell it's the Master Emerald and not a Chaos Emerald or something, but that's all. I can't draw on it, I can't _reach_ it. It's a little like it was when it was broken, but… different. When it was in pieces, I couldn't feel anything of its moods, because only the pieces existed and all they did was _scream_. There was nothing else the energy could do. It was broken.

"This time… It's not about the Emerald. It's me. Something is wrong with me and… It's like someone put blindfolds on me, Sonic. I know it is there but I can't see it. It's like… with this milky glass you have in some of your windows. You can look through and see the colours of what's on the other side, but you can't really _see_ it." As if exhausted after speaking so much, Knuckles fell silent, shoulders slumped and eyes down.

Sonic watched him for a second, doing his best to make sense of what he'd been told. While he couldn't feel much of the Master Emerald, not in any way like Knuckles at least, he could do so with the Chaos Emeralds, and the echidna's words made at least a bit of sense. Still, Sonic knew his red friend possessed a sense for chaos energy, especially for the Master Emerald, that had to be dozens of times sharper than his. Detaching Knuckles from the Master Emerald was as bad as taking Sonic's speed. In so far, Sonic could understand his despair.

He sighed, trying to develop something approaching an explanation. "I don't really know anything about this, but we already covered we're either in a different world than ours, one that still has other echidnas. Or at least we're in a different time. No matter which of them is closer to the truth, we don't belong here. If this really is another world or time, it's possible the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald are different from what we're used to." Sonic smiled weakly to himself, proud of how Tails-like-sounding a reasonable explanation he found there.

Knuckles lifted his gaze back up at him. "We need to know."

Sonic nodded. "Agreed. The quicker we find out what's going on, the quicker we'll find a way back to where things are the way they're supposed to be."

"Yeah…" Knuckles sighed.

Looking at him for another moment, Sonic pointed at the distance. His feet were still itching, and he'd dealt with the slow pace long enough now.

"What do you say if we speed things up a little?"

Knuckles smiled, even though rather grimly, and nodded.


	7. Since When Do Islands Float?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For better readability, you will be presented the English dub (translated echidna language in italics) of this chapter.

After significantly closing in on their set goal, Knuckles insisted they slowed down again. No matter how much he itched to get some answers, he considered it was better they didn't run into random people, and there had to be people somewhere around here…

As if to prove the red echidna right, a sudden, sharp voice sounded from out of the shadows and the two friends were surrounded by armed guards. "Nipok!"

Next to Knuckles, Sonic had dropped into fighting stance faster than anyone else could think let alone react, ready to jump the first best echidna around and defend himself.

"Sonic, wait!", Knuckles called, and turned to the guards.

Suspicious eyes fixed on Sonic and Knuckles, one of the echidnas stepped forwards, repeating his command. " _Halt! Who are thee and where are thee headed at this nightly time?!"_

" _Excuse the inconvenience, Sire_ ," Knuckles started, bowing slightly. " _My name is… uh…_ Knux _and this friend of mine is called by the name of…_ Blue. _We have come a long way from… um… the kingdom of the.. big_ rollercoasters." The guard's piercing eyes still looked suspicious and Knuckles really hoped no-one would notice how much nonsense he talked here.

_"I have not heard of this land to the day,"_ the leader of the guards noticed, his frown clearly visible in the moonlight.

_"I am not surprised, noble guard, for it is very far, far away."_ Knuckles hoped he sounded believable. _"I have travelled to this kingdom to explore the unknown zones. I spent years studying the natives' culture that is very different from ours."_ At least the last statement wasn't entirely a lie. _"Now I have taken the long journey to return home."_

The guard pointed at Sonic, and Knuckles' mind raced to find a plausible reply to the unspoken question.

"Blue _is his people's greatest warrior; his fine deeds are famous all among the kingdom._ " Boy, that hurt… " _In return to having been allowed to live with his people, I will show him the great capital_."

" _The last war is just over, the great floods have taken thousands of lives and the echidna people have suffered a lot. You must understand a stranger cannot be trusted into the sacred district_."

Knuckles nodded. " _Of course I do understand; we have seen a lot of destruction on our way here… But I can give you my word on my friend's intention. I owe my life to him_." The latter also wasn't a lie, and while Knuckles usually didn't speak of things like this too much, he also knew honour was one, if not the biggest of values in the old society, and nothing put you deeper in someone else's dept than if they had saved your life, home or reputation.

Luckily for Knuckles, the guard leader seemed to follow this philosophy; his eyes turned less piercing and he gestured at his fellows to lower their weapons. _"Ever since the wrath of chaos came upon us, the temple district has been a dangerous place. Even after the floods left and the god of destruction disappeared, most of us think nothing will ever be the same."_ The guard pointed vaguely down the road. _"Some echidnas spoke of ghostly voices that can be heard in the temple area even if no-one is there and the Great Emerald has been moved to a safer place. Earthquakes shake the ground, and sometimes the very earth glows with the light of the Emerald's Master. People vanished without a trace."_ His eyebrows lowered a little. _"The powers are not at rest yet. You shall pass, and nobody will keep you from visiting the sacred place, but be warned. This visit may be your last trip."_

_"I understand, but it is very important for us to see the place of chaos."_ The guard nodded and Knuckles bowed again. " _Thank you, Sire_." He turned to Sonic, who was looking between them, trying to get something out of observing since he didn't understand the words. "They let us pass. You should bow your head, that's a sign of respect. And don't grin while you do so."

"I'm not dumb," Sonic complained, but he seemed in control of his features as he inclined his head at the guards.

Knuckles gestured at him to be moving, but the guard leader waved a hand to stop them.

" _Would thee allow me a humble question?",_ he asked, looking a lot less authoritarian than before.

Knuckles nodded. " _Of course_."

The echidna guard pointed at Knuckles' feet. " _Your raiment is most uncommon. Is this what people cloth in in this kingdom your companion is from_?"

" _Yes, it is_." Knuckles nodded again.

_"It does not look very comfortable…"_

Knuckles smirked. " _Oh, it is more comfortable and practical than it looks."_

_"I see."_ The guard inclined his head. " _We shall not delay your journey further. May the powers of chaos enlighten and protect your way."_

_"Thank you. May you be gifted with a long life._ " Knuckles bowed his head a little again, silently reminding himself not to overdo it. "Come on," he waved at Sonic and they continued their walk down the road.

"What was his problem with your shoes?", Sonic queried the second they were out of earshot.

"He found they look not very comfortable." A grin slipped onto Knuckles' face. "I don't think our clothing was quite his style."

Sonic chuckled. "Look who's talking."

* * *

Archibald Charles Franklin Amadeus Fitzgerald Whitherpooth almost fell off his chair when the bell's ringing echoed loudly through the large observatory. It took the raccoon with the unorderly yellow hair almost two seconds to remember the late-night visitor had announced his arrival a couple hours ago. Archibald smiled, brushing a hand over the white coat he wore, before quickly making his way down the long flight of stairs.

His shoes caused hard knocks on the floor of the hallway as the scientist strode to the entrance. Forcefully tearing the metallic door open, he found himself facing a young fox not much more than half as tall as him and almost three times younger. Still, the little guy was one of the smartest people Archibald knew. And one of the few he'd made friends with. Very few people came to look behind the white walls of the observatory.

"Hello, Tails! It's great to see you agai- How'd you get past the fence?"

The fox smiled, indicating his double appendages. "I used these. Hello Professor!"

"Come in. I'm thrilled to hear what problem made one of the smartest minds on Mobius so desperate." The yellowish raccoon chuckled upon gesturing the youngster in.

"Oh, it's kind of a long story… and I'm hungry." Tails smiled sheepishly. "Do you have anything to eat?"

"Uh, I used to have a few sandwiches, I made them for lunch, don't remember when that was though, then I carried them upstairs, I guess I had them in the living room before, but I don't – ah, Tails, I gotta show you something! I caught two galaxies fusing through the big telescope, it's amazing! You just gotta see this!" Archibald pointed up the stairs to the main room of his observatory.

"Professor? I'd love to," Tails cut in before he could tell him anything more. "You haven't forgotten about the food already, have you?"

The raccoon scratched his head, running a hand through the chaotic hair. "Food? Yeah, of course. Tell ya something: We'll order some pizza, then we can work while someone else brings us the snack." He nodded, proud of his idea.

Frowning, his young guest looked up at him. "You _do_ know that it's two in the morning and the delivery doesn't work that late?"

"Oh, really? … Dang." Archibald's shoulders slumped in defeat. "You know," he sighed, "I spend so much time with my head between the stars I forget things like that…"

Tails smiled sweetly. "I know. But that's cool with me. I've known you for a while. I can even deal with the fact you hardly remember your own full name." Cerulean eyes blinked at the raccoon in a brief moment of childish joy.

"Yeah…" Archibald chuckled. "We're good, right?"

Tails laughed. "We sure are."

The scientist nodded. "Good. Then to your problem."

"And your galaxies." The two-tailed fox smiled.

"They've been there for millions of years and won't run off."

Tails nodded, looking serious. "Unfortunately that doesn't go for my problems. One of them is the fastest thing alive… and very lost."

Archibald curiously tilted his head. "Sonic is lost?"

"Yes, and Knuckles, too. They were kinda... well, they're gone and away, and I have no idea to where, or how to get them back…" The fox' ears folded backwards.

Smiling softly, the scientist put an arm around his young friend, leading him up the stairs. "From the beginning, Tails?"

* * *

Walking aside of Knuckles, Sonic's eyes kept darting around. After his red friend had let him in on what the guards had told him about mysterious things happening around here, expectant silence was prevailing the atmosphere. Progressing at a deliberate pace, both of them waited for something to happen. Neither was sure what kind of thing to expect, though.

The blue hedgehog almost jumped at Knuckles' small yelp. "Sonic!"

"What's up?" Sonic's gaze flashed around.

Knuckles held his left hand to his head. "I dunno… Something's… happening and –" He stopped, eyes wide, and stretched out a shaky hand. "Just what the…?"

Just like the echidna, Sonic could just stare, feeling unable to close his mouth. Before them, the ground was glowing in a dim, green light, a little like the phosphorescent shine of the stickers Tails had on the ceiling of his bedroom, but greener and even less bright. The glow pulsated in a slow frequency, seeming to pass through the grass, trees and other plants as though they were transparent. "Whoa…"

Whirling around, Sonic found the glowing ground continued up to a couple meters behind their position where it stopped abruptly, leaving a flickering border to the unaffected ground. Sonic's gaze dropped down to his feet, and as an at least slightly reassuring thing he noticed the green light didn't shine through his shoes and flesh… It was odd enough without such a thing.

"Master Emerald?" Phrasing the more than rhetorical question, he turned back to Knuckles.

The guardian nodded. "Has to be it. If I –" Once again the echidna was interrupted in his speech as the ground suddenly shook violently. The force of the sudden quake threw the two friends off their feet, and a deep rumble caused the ground to vibrate, announcing another quake.

Sonic struggled to get on all fours. He'd barely accomplished this given the circumstances not easy feat and opened his mouth to say… _something_ , when the soil beneath him he'd deemed so stable and solid _jolted,_ an acceleration akin to what Sonic remembered the start of the rocket that had brought their shuttle to Space Colony Ark a while ago being like. He was pushed flat to the ground by a force that made it hard to even breathe.

Relief flooded through his body as the pressure reduced as suddenly as it had appeared and he crawled to his knees, looking around for Knuckles. He'd just spotted the echidna when his stomach gave him this weird, light feeling you get when falling freely, and the hedgehog watched, without comprehending anything about it, the ground _tilting_.

As if something like this wouldn't be alarming enough in itself, everything was shaking again, throwing him and Knuckles around like little balls on a pinball table.

They were not the only 'loose things' displaced by the violent quakes; all sorts of rocks and even some trees shared the same fate. Without any actual way of controlling the way or direction he was moving, all Sonic could do to avoid a direct collision was little twists and frantic attempts at jumps. Some were successful, others not so much, and the hedgehog was thrown against hard surfaces more often than he'd like to.

"Knuckles?!" He'd lost sight of his echidna friend by now. Anything else would have been a surprise, actually, looking at how he hardly knew which way was up or down anymore…

"Sonic! We have to try - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" A scream of pain cut off Knuckles' words.

"Knux?! Knuckles!" There came no reply. "KNUCKLES! Say someth- oomph!" Something that looked and felt remotely like the stem of a tree hit Sonic squarely, knocking the wind out of him, the impulse of the impact pushing him along the still steeply tilted ground. He rolled over an edge in it, his hands reaching below him to soften his landing – and went through nothing but air. "Oh oh…"

Turning his head to get a glimpse at what was below, Sonic was stricken with a very nervous making lack of anything there. He was falling, to his right sharp edged rocks rushing by, still in the process of crumbling, causing thousands of bigger and smaller chunks of stone going the same way as Sonic, raining down on… whatever was below. "WHAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

So, they'd found Angel Island, Sonic realized numbly through his panic. And they'd found out how it started flying around… unfortunately, they wouldn't get to tell anyone…

On reflex Sonic curled up, spines stiffened the most they could. He didn't actually think it'd save him, but he was too much in panic to care.

And then the pain started, sharp, drilling into his skull from his forehead… but it was nothing like he'd expected. Sure, he'd never been crushed before, but wasn't this kind of thing supposed to happen _fast_? Bang, splash, that was it?

Instead, for an odd moment it seemed as though he'd stopped falling, stood still in the air. The rumbling was gone, the noise and the rush of air… It was silent. And his head… his head _hurt_. As hell. The longer it lasted, the more the rest of his body filled with a tingling sensation, not entirely painful, but not painfree either. His vision was growing white, then his mind followed until there was just bright whiteness, until he _was_ nothing but bright whiteness.

Suddenly the blinding light everywhere was gone, and he was falling again, noticing the sensation only vaguely through a cloud of dizziness in his head. That was, until he hit the ground, though not near as hard as he'd feared he would.

Groaning aloud, Sonic rolled over, the pain slowly easing away. He kept his eyes closed, focused on his breathing. It was a good way to calm the mind. Just breathe, in and out, don't think. Slowly he started noticing the warmth of sun on his face. The air was heavy with numerous smells and grass tickled him with every little movement.

Curiosity got the better of him and Sonic opened his eyes, squinting up at a blue sky, the blinding sun blinking at him through the giant leaves of a palm tree.

The hedgehog sat up with a jolt. He was sitting in long grass, in midst of a light, tropical forest with palm trees and cedars and some other trees he didn't know, some of them dressed in more flowers than leaves.

"Just what the…?" In spite of better knowing, Sonic's head tilted back, searching for the rocks and the edge he'd fallen over. There was nothing. And it wasn't night anymore… The blue hedgehog sharply shook his head. This didn't make any freaking sense!

… But seriously, what of the things happening in the past day had made sense, actually? Him and Knuckles landing in the past and –

Knuckles! Where was the red echidna?

Sonic hopped to his feet, slowly turning on the spot once to get a full look around. "KNUX!" A few colourful Flickies were alarmed by his yelling and fluttered hastily a few trees away from him, but they were the only creatures paying attention to him. Sonic sighed, hands fisting. He had to find Knuckles… and find out where he'd landed… and how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Professor Archibald first appeared in "Chaos and Confusion". You don't need to know anything about him to understand this story, though.


	8. Broken

Through a haze of pain, Knuckles slowly became aware of his gasping, raspy breath. While the headache dissipated rather quickly, his right arm felt as though several not so small, dull saws were busily working on detaching his hand and forearm from everything up his elbow, and unlike everything else, it just seemed to get worse as the slow seconds passed.

Opening his eyes through an act of sheer willpower, the echidna tried getting a look on the injured limb, already expecting it to have fallen off or something.

Somewhat reassuringly, it had not. Stiffly and with efforts he got into a sitting position on the hard, black ground and quickly examined the damage… as well as possible. He couldn't move his right hand and his forearm formed an odd angle. Touching a fingertip just to his fur resulted in raising the pain's peak level to that exact amount that made the edges of your vision grow black and everything else swim out of focus.

Pressing his good left hand to the ground behind his back to help stabilize himself, Knuckles panted through clenched teeth, waiting for the pain to recede to a bearable level. As it did, the question of where in the world he was got through to him.

Still sitting and refraining from any quick or major movements, the guardian turned his head, left, right, and even up. Wherever 'here' was, it was bright daylight, the air flickering in the blistering heat, especially above the dark paved road he sat on. Shining white stripes on it marked two lanes and the road's sides were lined with tropical trees, palms and flowered bushes.

He got to his feet very carefully, pressing a sharp curse through ground teeth. It took a minute until he'd rested his injured arm tucked against his body and held by his left hand in a way he thought he could stand, then he slowly started walking along that road. He had no idea where it went, but as Sonic had truthfully said, roads had to lead _somewhere_. And somewhere was better than nowhere, which was where he was at the moment.

Sonic. The thought of what could have happened to the hedgehog crossed his mind just briefly, then other things were claiming too many priorities.

The heat, for example. Knuckles quickly lost any track of time he might have had left as he walked down the road. The vegetation next to it didn't really change. Nothing appeared in his view besides sky, road, plants and sun. The latter was spending all its energy into trying to melt the asphalt beneath his feet as well as the contents of his skull. His arm of course didn't approve of any of this.

Still, a tiny smile fought its way onto his face even through the grimace at the sight of a couple double lines of small, spinning rings. Reflecting the bright sunlight with each revolution, their golden twinkle in itself was a relief; in his mind the mere look connected to the memory of uncounted occasions before when the chaos energy they held within had cured his injuries.

His steps accelerating a little, Knuckles made his way over to the first group of glittering rings, walking right into them, waiting for the short instant of dizziness and the 'pling' sound when their energies absorbed into his body.

It didn't come.

Knuckles' feet stopped and he stared in total disbelief at the golden rings around him. He stood right in the middle of them, and the closest one was rotating right _through_ his left leg as if he was air. Or the ring was air. Or… whatever.

Letting go of his right elbow he'd supported with his good hand up to then, the echidna stretched his left arm out towards the spinning rounds. There was no resistance when he touched the space the ring suspended in. No pling, no energy, no nothing.

Staring at his hand, at the rings and back at his hand, Knuckles shook his head. "This is… _not true_ …"

For a second or two he actually considered if he was dreaming, if all of this was just a sick nightmare. If it was, now was a good moment to wake up. On second thought, taking into account the angrily pounding fire in his right forearm and the pestering heat of the sun burning down on his skull, it was quite a little too real for a dream of some sort.

Once again Knuckles reached out into the bunch of gold rings, once again his fingers went through them as if either didn't exist. The echidna shook his head. He didn't _want_ to believe this. How could they not work?

… _Like the Master Emerald_.

The thought struck like a bolt of lightening. He couldn't feel the Master Emerald since… since this had started, since Eggman's whatever it was had blown up and they'd stumbled right into all of this trouble. He couldn't feel the energy. Knuckles knew the golden rings consisted of chaos energy just like the Emeralds did. What had Eggman's exploding thing done to _him_? And… what if it _stayed_ that way?

Drawing a shaky breath, Knuckles slipped his left palm back under his right arm, grimacing at the touch. Had he felt like crap before, now he could reasonably claim he'd hardly ever felt worse before in his life.

Not even looking at the rings anymore, he walked forwards again. Staying here was fruitless… and so was walking to any other place.

As if having decided to mock the echidna, the heat just seemed to get worse. The shadow his body threw barely took the space his feet touched on the ground in the vertical sunlight. He would have given so much for a pond of cool water right about now… But there was nothing like it. Just tropical sun blazing on pavement.

He staggered, frantically regained his balance, pushed himself forwards. There was a little part of common sense left in his brain telling him that this wasn't the place to stay at, that he had to keep moving.

It took another few hundreds of more and more heavy footsteps until that little voice fell unnoticed, until he dropped down in the light shade of a palm tree next to the road, calming his conscience by claming it was just a short break, disregarding the fact he didn't feel like standing up anytime soon and move on.

His back sank against the tree's stem, resting his bad arm in his lap, drops of sweat slowly running down his forehead and face. He licked off a few that touched his lips, hoping to calm his thirst. Then he just lay there, in a strange, totally surreal way not caring anymore. As if all of this really was just a twisted dream, and as if he was just a spectator in it.

* * *

Ivo Robotnik's eyes scanned the freshly printed data sheet he held in hands. It contained information on the progress of his power core project, and the data was beginning to look promising.

Technically speaking, Robotnik was planning to build an all new power storing device. He'd based the function on the design of the chaos drives, small casings that could hold a small amount of different types of chaos energy. The new power core, once finished, would be able to contain thousands of times as much as a puny chaos drive. It wouldn't get that close to a Chaos Emerald, but it would be entirely sufficient for his purpose.

Using the ring energy brought along various advantages. The most obvious one was that it was easy to get a hold of the energy holding specimen. Rings spawned everywhere on Mobius, in an apparently random system, although almost always in clear, geometric patterns. Since the rings were everywhere and came without any work for him, recharging the power core once it was finished and in use should be a lot easier than with other installations he'd used before, like for example the robots that ran on the Hyper-Go-On energy of the alien wisp creatures. Snatching enough of the little beasts to refill his batteries had been a horrendrous amount of work. A waste of time by Robotnik's concern.

Aside of the great availability, rings apparently were the least chaotic form of the chaos energy, if that way to phrase it made any sense. The scientific rules they followed were, while not comparable with regular matter, still somewhat _reliable_. Not like a Chaos Emerald that could always, no matter how much precaution one applied, do something it had never done before, and would probably never do again. A ring, even a great number of them, was much nicer to handle. Much less savage.

Again Robotnik read through the assembly protocol, then he nodded to himself. He would soon be able to conduct first tests on it. The scientist grinned to himself, running a hand along his moustache. Testing was so much more fun than planning.

* * *

"Now that's just great…" Sonic sighed to himself.

You'd think that after an hour of running through a tropical forest you would have seen something interesting. At least that was what Sonic had thought. Well, if you considered multiple small animals, thousands of different plants and a generally beautiful nature as interesting, he would have been right. Since the hedgehog was – and if just momentarily – more interested in finding a clue on his location and the whereabouts of his red companion, jungle beauty didn't really strike him right now.

He was almost glad when he rounded a colourfully flowered bush, scaring a little squirrel, and stood in front of a set of rough wooden tables and benches.

One eyebrow raised, Sonic's eyes roamed the simple furniture on the meadow before him. "Something like a picnic area," he mused, walking around one of the tables. Something caught at his leg and he looked down, finding it to be the page of a newspaper. A slight frown on his face, the blue hedgehog picked it up, turning it around so he could read. He blinked, for a moment stuck at stupidly staring at it.

He was holding the first page of the sports section of the 'South Island Times', dated the fifth of July… ten years ago. "Welcome home, Sonic," he mumbled, still staring down on the paper.

In a way, this was a lucky shot. He'd found out where he was, even if this newspaper was probably a few days old, it didn't matter.

South Island. The place he'd grown up at. A beautiful island, full of forests and with long beaches as well as exciting cliffs. Sonic had spent his childhood here… until Robotnik's first attack in history. Ever since, meaning the past five years, Sonic had fought the evil scientist whenever a new doomsday plan appeared. It was his life, and he rarely regretted it. After all, without the thrill of adventures, would he be the same Sonic he was now?

Shaking his head, Sonic forced his mind away from these contemplations, placing the newspaper on the wooden picnic table. He'd found out where he was, that meant one objective down, what in return meant two more to go. Deciding to put 'How the hell did I get here?' on hold for now, that left 'Where the heck is Knuckles?'.

Determined to find an answer to this particular question next, Sonic strode past the picnic furniture. A small path led him through the light jungle for about a minute, then the hedgehog stepped past the treeline and found himself next to a paved road.

He looked left, and right, and left again. The asphalt ran in a close to straight line as far as he could see. Sonic looked again.

"I'd need a coin to throw," he said, grinning to himself. In lack of one, he finally settled for going right.

Out on the road it was even hotter than it had been between the jungle trees. Sonic glimpsed up at the merciless sun. No cloud to obscure it in sight. Not that this really surprised him. In the middle of summer the temperatures on South Island, could easily reach forty degrees in the shade, especially not at the beach where you still had the cooling breeze from the sea. The hedgehog looked back down, watching the hot air blur above the pavement.

"This is weather for ice cream," he noticed. Hmm… Ice cream would really be nice now.

As if his longing had been heard, the blue hedgehog spotted a sign next to the road and stopped to read it. Bold black letters on a yellow background informed trespassers that South Island's capital was 30 miles away.

Sonic smirked. A mere stone's throw. He fell into a relaxed jog along the road. "Ice cream, here I come!"

Hopefully, the hedgehog mused, he would also find a trace of the red echidna soon.

* * *

"… and finally the new tracking device blew up on me," Tails finished his report, sitting on a rare free spot on top of Archibald's huge (and messy) desk. "And then I called you…" The young fox looked up at his friend, shoulders slumped and twin tails hanging limply down the table at his sides.

The yellow raccoon didn't say anything for a moment, instead took off his glasses and started polishing the glass with a tip of his white coat's sleeve, seeming totally focused on it. Nothing but the distant look in his blue eyes told Tails his friend's mind was doing overtime.

Suddenly, with a swift, curt motion Archibald set his glasses back on his nose. "This radiation you caught." It was not even a full sentence, and to anyone not knowing him it might have sounded like a senseless statement and not a question.

Tails wasn't 'anyone', and he could reasonably claim to be probably the only person on the planet understanding the crazy professor. "I'm not sure. It has a lot of parameters you can also observe in chaos energy fields, but something's really different."

Another moment of silence followed, then Archibald raised an eyeridge. "Have you done vector factorization?"

Tails blinked. "No."

Archibald nodded. "We'll look into that first."

The next half an hour consisted of Tails reading the data he'd already gathered to the professor who typed it into his computer., a huge, noisily ventilating device that certainly consumed the power needed to run a little town… and something Tails was secretly jealous he didn't have… yet.

Finally, the large screens showed not only chains of numbers, equations and tables, but also several graphs.

Pointing at the latter, the professor indicated one of them, highlighting it so it stuck out among the rest of the data. "I made the computer draw a chaos flux space vector diagram for us, based on the isolated components of the chaos field caused by your mysterious explosion. Now we can finally look at it without all that interference out there." He smiled.

Tails tilted his head, his gaze running over the graph. From the left to the right, a green line ran up and down in a zigzag pattern, rough, sharp teeth forming hills and valleys in what on first sight looked like randomness. On second look however Tails noticed the longer rhythm that lay beneath the small zigzag teeth.

He scratched behind his ear. "Ventricular fibrillation."

The raccoon laughed. "Looks like it, yeah." He leaned forwards, fingers rushing over the keyboard. "But look."

On the screen the zigzag was evened out, leaving a clear, symmetrical curve behind. "A sine oscillation?" Tails frowned thoughtfully.

"If we leave out the minor fluctuations, which are normal, always existent in any kind of chaos energy and im to find an actual pattern in that's not apparent randomness, this is what stays behind. A perfectly clean fluctuation in the radiation's intensity." Archibald's arms folded on his chest.

Through narrowed eyes Tails stared at the curve. "I've never seen anything as… _un_ - _random_ before… in chaos energy things, I mean. What is it? And… what _caused_ it?"

"If I'm not totally mistaken, the explosion you spoke of. That, by the way, wasn't an explosion," the professor noticed matter-of-factly.

"I know," Tails nodded slowly, "I thought it could be something like Chaos Control. A lot of the parameters match."

He received a nod from his friend. "There's a difference that stuck out to me: When splitting a Chaos Control impulse into its components, we always found either the spatial or temporal components of it to be prevailing. If Chaos Control is used to slow down or stop time, it's the temporal part that outbalances the others; if it's a teleport the spatial dimensions are affected." Archibald paused. "This one," he pointed at the graph on the screen, "is both."

Tails stared at him. "And that means?"

"I'm not sure yet. But look at this." He typed another command into his computer and the highlight was removed from the graph and switched to a frame hosting a bunch of numbers.

Tails scanned through them, shook his head, returned to the first and slowly read through it all again. Once more shaking his head, he turned to his friend. "You're not telling me whatever this thing I tracked actually is, it's outside the _universe_?"

The yellow raccoon shifted, a hand fumbling with his unorderly hair. "Not exactly. It's a chaos field, of a kind that doesn't _entirely_ fit into the universe's construction…"

Tails's eyes narrowed. "That goes for all chaos objects, starting with the golden rings, continuing with the Chaos Emerald, the Master Emerald and ending with Super Sonic. They're a compromise. A small part of a higher dimension interfused with ours."

"Yes. And this new _thing_ " - the tone he said that word with told Tails very well how little Archibald liked using an unspecific term like that – "is one step up from them. Something… more fifth-dimensionally than anything I've seen before."

Tails dropped down onto the desk chair. "Wow."

"Uh, yes." The professor took off his glasses again, brushing over them. A habit when he was thinking hard. "We have tracked two of these abnormal chaos fields in a rather limited space… as good as we can determine the spatial position. The problem is, if we can tell where they are spatially, we can't determine their temporal position."

"Uncertainty principle." Tails nodded. "I know… But… why is time so important?"

"I assume that, based on the knowledge they're both sensitive to chaos energy and have been interacting with it in various ways before, Sonic and Knuckles, being so close to that chaos blast or whatever we want to call it, have absorbed a good portion of that new, free energy. That's what we can track."

"Two chaos fields." Tails nodded.

"Yes. So if we track down the chaos fields, we track down our friends." Archibald frowned. "The problem is that according to your data, we have both time and space variables. Additionally, judging from the intensity at the graph's peak points, this new Chaos Control form has happened twice already… and will do so again."

"They've really changed both their temporal and spatial positions? Twice?" Tails shook his head. "I can't believe it…"

The professor looked at him seriously. "Time travels. A very interesting field…"

Tails nodded again. "And a very risky one as well."

"Indeed, my friend."


	9. Patches

Ironically, Sonic felt less of the heat after picking up a pace than he had felt of it while walking. The wind was gently tugging on his curvy quills and brushing through his fur, taking some of the warmth away.

A jog at just a few hundred miles per hour didn't really strain the blue hedgehog, nor did it require any actual attention, especially not on a straight, smoothly paved road. After less than a minute of running, Sonic's mind wandered away from the path and ended up spinning around a question that had occurred to him just briefly before.

Sonic wasn't anything like a scientific genius as Tails was, but he wasn't stupid. Usually he understood at least basically how something worked.

He was able to accept the idea that when Eggman's weird machine had blow up on them back at his base, with a Chaos Emerald so close by, that some kind of chaos effect had sent him and Knuckles back in time. Sonic's understanding didn't go far enough to try grasping the exact way something like this worked. He also didn't know how Chaos Control worked, and he didn't care much. The simple fact that it _did_ work was okay with him.

In the same way that allowed him to accept that through physical effects he didn't understand an Emerald could be used for teleportation or stopping time, he could also accept that through a similar effect they'd been send to the past. Fine. But that was where his understanding stopped.

The concept he'd accepted behind their first time travel – Eggman machine blows up, Chaos Emerald does time-travel thing – couldn't be applied to this second time it had happened just a few hours ago.

It had been the same, exactly the same… The headaches, this feeling of being torn apart while it happened, the strange whiteness he'd seen… The entire event was like a copy of the first… if you counted out the weird, blurry surreal-ness he had witnessed in Eggman's lab before the actual time-transport happened. Still, the thing itself was the same.

And yet, there was an important difference to the last time: There was neither a strange Eggman machine around, nor an Emerald. There had been these Master Emerald effects, but Sonic didn't think they were involved. They'd made the island fly, but he'd already been falling when the teleport… or whatever it really was happened. The only consistent things, the only factors that were there for both events were Knuckles and himself. Maybe it was something they had with them and didn't know they did that caused these teleporting things, but Sonic couldn't really think of anything. Neither of them carried anything but their clothing, really…

The hedgehog forcefully shook his head. Nothing of this made sense, and apparently he wasn't very talented at the 'think like Tails' thing. At least, nothing of use turned out when he tried… A frown crossed over Sonic's brow at the thought of his young, two-tailed friend. He hoped Tails was alright, unhurt, in the right time and all.

Had he gotten out of the base by himself without trouble? And, almost equally important, had he figured out what happened to Knuckles and Sonic? The blue hedgehog didn't doubt that Tails was searching for them. They were gone for two days or something, by Sonic's guessing. It became kind of hard to guess how much time passed when you ended up at random places. Twice.

No, Sonic was sure Tails was searching for them, but how would he find them like that? The hedgehog sighed. He didn't really doubt Tails. He never did. Tails was one, if not the most, reliable factor in Sonic's life. If anyone could figure out what was going on and how to fix it, Tails would.

Sonic smiled a little, deciding that if Tails was searching for a way out and if he and Knuckles kept searching for a way out as well, it couldn't be so bad. Best to enjoy this freaky time travel while it lasted, then.

Leaning a little more into the wind blowing into his face, Sonic let himself relax and focus on running, taking the curves of the road at a still relatively low speed that allowed him to look at everything around. There was nothing much but jungle to see, but it was beautiful, and so awfully familiar it rang thousands of bells in his head.

He spotted the red shape just from the very corner of his eye as he rushed past. Spinning around to run backwards, he looked again, a bright red form too much sticking out between the green flora next to the road not to catch his eye. He made a swift turn just a second after actually looking at what he'd spotted, dashing back and sliding to a stop, causing his sneaker's soles to screech loudly in protest.

"Yo, Knucklehead! You know, you're pretty hard to find in this jungle…"

Brushing some dust off his fur, the blue hedgehog started talking before actually looking at the echidna. He did when he received no reply, not even the anticipated grunt, growl or a muttered vocalization of annoyance.

"Hey, whatever brought us here, it wasn't my fault, you know?", he noticed, expecting anger or frustration at their anew misplacement to be the cause of Knuckles' silence. When he looked at his face however, he dropped his playful teasing.

The echidna was kipped against a palm tree. Due to the angle of the sun, it offered little shadow and Knuckles' face lay in bright sunlight. His red fur was darkened and clamped with sweat, the skin of his muzzle coated with a glazing film and a few visible droplets. Half-lidded eyes dully gazed up at Sonic, and the red guardian was breathing more quickly than the hedgehog considered a healthy creature in rest against a tree should.

Kneeling at his side so he could actually face him, Sonic waved his hand in front of his eyes, trying to snap him out of whatever trance he seemed in. "Knuckles! Hey!"

The echidna blinked slowly. "Leave me alone, Sonic…"

In spite of these not welcoming words, Sonic was glad he'd finally said something at all. "I'm sorry, no can do. You don't look as if you could go without help…" He tried a smile while casting his eyes over Knuckles' body. They stopped at his right arm and he reached to persuade his friend's left hand away from it so he could actually look.

Knuckles winced, jolting a little more upright, sending a glare at Sonic. "I don't need any help! What part of 'leave me alone' did you miss?"

Sonic felt a sarcastic smirk form on his face. "Ah, I see. You've got everything perfectly covered. Now explain me: What part does sitting here and getting yourself heat struck take in this oh so awesome plan of yours?"

Knuckles stared, open-mouthed like a fish. "I…"

"Yeah, that's really a wonderful plan," Sonic remarked dryly as the echidna trailed off. "Now tell me what's up with your arm."

If he was still searching for a way to handle Sonic's probably unexpected way of dealing with him or if the commanding tone in the hedgehog's voice did it remained a mystery to Sonic, but Knuckles' hand moved a little away from his right forearm. "It's nothing," he muttered.

Sonic bit back a gasp upon seeing it and struggled to keep his leisure, dry tone. "Ah, a nice little nothing you got there… bending your arm in whole new angles. How'd that happen?"

"I dunno… Something fell on it. Or I fell on it. Or both…" Knuckles' head dropped back against the stem of the palm tree.

Sonic nodded as if that had been a helpful statement. "How long have you been sitting here, getting yourself toasted?"

The echidna attempted a shrug and the groan of pain that followed managed to find a way though gritted teeth. "No.. idea…"

Sonic nodded again, skipping on his friend's not quite successful struggle to look unaffected. "Okay." He looked him over again. "Any more nothings you wanna tell me about?"

He received another death glare.

"Just asking." Sonic smiled softly, finding the knowledge that Knuckles was injured, tired and probably on a good way of getting himself critically heat struck made it a lot easier putting up with his moods and tempers.

"You know you can't stay here, as…" He spent a short look around casting about for a fitting term. "… as friendly and inviting as this place might be."

Knuckles grunted. "It's not that there was anywhere to go…"

"I passed a street sign a quarter hour or so ago. The road's heading right for the capital of the island we're on. And that's where we're gonna go as well now. I know they've got a hospital there."

"I don't need any weird surface-dweller doctoring!", Knuckles protested.

"No, of course you don't." Sonic shook his head. "I just figured you can't do any freaking guardian of the freaking Master Emerald magic to mend broken bones, 'cause if you could, you wouldn't sit here attempting to turn yourself into a well-through echidna steak."

Once again Knuckles was left staring. "But –"

"No."

"I didn't even say –"

"I don't need to hear it, I know you. Knux." Sonic looked at him sternly. "You've got two choices now. Either you get up and we'll go to town together, or I'll just run and call an ambulance to get you there, and if I need to knock you out for that, fine. You're one arm short of standing a chance in a fight. Either way, I'll get you to see a doctor and get this arm of yours fixed, may you like it or not… It's broken in two places, from the looks of it. Maybe you should consider that you'll need it for the rest of your life and that you're really screwed if it doesn't mend correctly."

The red echidna blinked, still staring at Sonic. The hedgehog didn't look away, until something happened that rarely came to be in case of a staring contest of that kind between them: Knuckles looked away first. "Fine," he mumbled, defeated, and Sonic was reminded how groggy he really looked. "Can we stay for a moment?", he asked then, quiet as if ashamed.

"Sure, if it's not too long…" Sonic nodded, watching him for a moment, then he stood up. "I'll go get us a drink. I'm really thirsty, and you gotta be as well. Okay?" He eyed his scarlet friend suspiciously.

"I won't run away," the echidna muttered.

"Good. That's all I wanted to hear." Sonic turned and sped off, not saying aloud that running away wouldn't be a very successful attempt anyway. He was the fastest thing alive, playing tag with him was a losing game anyway… and while Knuckles certainly wasn't a slow runner himself, at the moment he didn't look like he would manage a good run.

The town really wasn't far, just a minute later Sonic passed the first houses. He stopped at the first best supermarket, fishing a few coins out of the hidden pocket in his shoe. Another few minutes later he exited the shop with a description of the way to the city's hospital and a huge bottle of Chaos Cola.

While he knew this stuff wasn't anything like a favourite drink to Knuckles, he considered a good dose of sugar and caffeine really could only improve matters. What he didn't know wouldn't bother him, so Sonic made an agreement with his conscience to just claim there had been no juice or other drinks.

When he arrived where he'd left Knuckles, the bottle blew up on him, much to the Emerald guardian's amusement. Consistent shaking probably really wasn't a good thing to do with carbonated drinks…

Sonic used the time they sat and finished the coke to let Knuckles in on what he'd found out on their location and just as expected his friend wasn't really happy to hear they were not back home but still in the past. Sonic tried lifting his spirits reminding him they were a lot 'less' in the past now, but it didn't help much.

In another sense the hedgehog's trying seemed more successful; after drinking most of the cool liquid Knuckles looked a lot better than when Sonic had found him. With that as a basis and bit more pushiness and threatening, the two of them finally set off.

* * *

Tails sat on the desk again, dangling his legs. In the middle of the room, the giant telescope seemed to be standing guard over the two Mobians in the lab.

"So, if they're really doing time travels, because they're full of a chaos radiation that does time travels…" Tails shrugged. "And we don't know where they are or _when_ they are there… How do we get them back?" It was the critical question. If they didn't find an answer to it, any other answers they might find held no value at all.

"If we want to try teleporting them back into our world and timeline, we need as much energy as the process that brought them to where they are now." Archibald walked back and forth in front of Tails.

"We need a Chaos Emerald," the fox specified. "If that isn't enough, I'm sure we can take the Master Emerald and for one time in his life Knuckles wouldn't mind. Energy shouldn't be a problem."

"The interface is the problem." Archibald ran a hand through the mess of strands on his head, bending one pointed ear in the progress. "Tails, I'm professor of physics and astronomy, I'm afraid I have no idea how to build a working time teleporter."

Tails shrugged. "No-one does, as far as I know. We'll just have to improvise. I've already got an idea."

The professor's eyebrows shot up. "Specifically?"

Tails jumped off the table and turned around to point at the screen. "We concluded that when there is a peak in the chaos flux, a time teleport happens, right?"

Archibald nodded.

"So, it's radiation… or, an impulse." Tails snapped his fingers. "If a chaos impulse works anything similar to any electromagnetic one, we need an antenna to catch it."

The yellow raccoon stared at him, his bushy, striped tail moving slowly. "This is crazy… In fact, it's crazy enough to try."

A grin slipped onto Tails' face. "Then let's do it!"

* * *

"Hey, what do you think you're doin'?" Knuckles slid off the examination table he'd just taken a seat on as the doctor, a mouse in his mid-forties, took out a syringe and reached out for him. "I don't do drugs!"

"Knuckles, it's just medicine," Sonic interjected, pushing the echidna back down. Man, he sure was a lot worse than Sonic himself… The hedgehog looked up at the doctor. "It'll help healing your arm." Secretly Sonic was sure that besides the antibiotics the liquid in the syringe contained a painkiller. But if they told Knuckles _that_ , he'd refuse taking it.

If the white-coated man was aware of that or not was unimportant, but for some reason he didn't give further information and just nodded to Sonic' explanation. "Your friend is right, I will not poison you," he said in a soft voice, quirking an eye ridge in surprise when Knuckles didn't show the slightest wince as the needle slid into his arm. "See, that wasn't too bad now, was it?", he smiled down on the echidna. Then he looked over to Sonic. "You can wait outside if you want, I have sworn an oath to _heal_ people, not kill them…"

Sonic shook his head. He knew Knuckles certainly didn't need company to hold his hand… but maybe a mediator. "It's not him I'm worried about."

The doctor gave him a weird look, but didn't comment on it. Instead, he seemed to have decided changing the topic to a more relaxed level; while he spread some items on a small table, his gaze wandered up and down his strange patient. "Will it offend you if I ask you what species you are? I've seen many, but in your case I have no idea."

"Echidna," Knuckles replied shortly, watching him suspiciously.

The mouse frowned at him. "I thought those are extinct."

"Do I look very extinct?"

The medic chuckled. "Actually, no. Must have been false information then." He moved over and started to examine Knuckles' arm more closely. "How did that happen you said?"

"A bunch of rocks crashed down on him," Sonic told him.

"Ah really? Where?"

Knuckles shook his head. "Out of question."

The doctor blinked, looked over to Sonic as if seeking support; the hedgehog shrugged, if Knuckles didn't want to tell he wouldn't either; and the doctor went on examining the echidna's injury silently.

* * *

Feeling stupid with Sonic lurking about just watching him, Knuckles had managed to persuade the hedgehog to wait in the hospital's cafeteria while his arm was screened and finally tended to. Almost half an hour after Sonic had left, Knuckles left the room, finding himself on a long corridor. Brightly white walls, cold neon lights, and the penetrating smell of disinfectant didn't actually make the place comfortable.

Unsure where to go now and left with no idea what was the best and quickest way out, the echidna slowly wandered along the corridors, his arm resting in a sling. It had almost stopped hurting by now; the angry throbbing of earlier mysteriously receded to a dull pounding. After straightening the broken bone, what had indeed hurt great deal, the doctor had put it into an all-around splint of a hard white material. They had called it a _cast_. It covered his arm now from just below his elbow up to half of his hand, leaving just his fingers free. Since it was on, his forearm felt slightly numb, as if it would only partly belong to him, but Knuckles didn't care much as it was a great improvement to the situation before.

The red echidna was starting to ponder if he'd gotten entirely lost in this hospital. Damn all these walls and doors looking all the same. Sighing to himself, he stopped walking right in the middle of the corridor. He felt woozy and didn't really know how to regain his bearings. He looked around cluelessly.

Just a step or two from where he was, a dark purple furred otter stood with her back to him, fumbling with her long dress, gazing through a window into the room that lay behind. As if feeling Knuckles' presence, she turned over her shoulder, large hazel eyes filled with sadness, but a warm smile tugged briefly on her lips at the sight of him.

"Can I help you?"

Knuckles tried a smile. "Oh, I'm just not sure which way is out of here."

The woman smiled back. "That's where everyone here wants, I suppose." Her look returned to the window. "I'm sure this little guy would like to be elsewhere, too."

Tilting his head, Knuckles slowly walked closer, also throwing a look through the window.

"Poor thing…", the female at his side noticed, pity evident in her voice, but Knuckles hardly heard her.

His attention seemed unable to focus on her as soon as he dared the look into the hospital room. It wasn't very big, and almost filled by the white bed that appeared so many times too big for the small form that lay on it. The child was curled up on his side, the blanket covering him up to his waist. As a sharp contrast to the colourless furniture, the child's fur and the curved quills lying on the pillow stuck out in royal blue. Knuckles blinked. Six headspines, and two smaller ones on the tiny hedgehog's shoulder blades. The small, triangular ears lay folded back displaying discomfort even as he was clearly asleep. Small, peach coloured hands had curled around the pillow's edges.

"Hello? Is everything okay? Don't you feel good?" The otter's voice brought Knuckles back to reality.

"I… I'm okay. A little lightheaded maybe, but I'm good, really." He forced his eyes away from the young hedgehog on the bed. "What happened to him?"

"Do you know him?" Suddenly, the woman sounded excited.

Knuckles shrugged a little, and regretted it as soon as he did, his broken arm reminding him of its presence by sending a sharp pain through him. Fighting off a grimace, the echidna threw a look back at the sleeping child. "I'm not sure. Maybe if you could tell me something more I'd figure it out?"

She nodded. "I don't see why not. Come on, we'll sit down over there, okay?", she suggested, pointing at a small bench on the other side of the corridor. Knuckles nodded.

"By the way, I'm Nelly." She held out a hand at him, realized his corresponding one was currently out of service and quickly switched hands with an apologizing smile.

Shaking her hand, the red echidna smiled a little, too. "My name is Knuckles."

"Nice to meet you." She leaned back on the bench, crossing her legs at the knees, throwing him a side-glance. "Well, I guess I'll tell you what I know about the kid. It's kind of a tragedy, I guess..."


	10. Hedgehog Out Of The Water

_Rummaging through the drawer, Howard Otter grunted in annoyance. "Nelly, dear? Where did you put my boots?"_

_His wife chuckled lightly behind him. "I didn't put them anywhere, darling. You took them off in the kitchen, so I guess they will still be standing there…"_

_Howard laughed. Closing the somewhat messy drawer again, the brown otter smiled at his wife. The two elders had spent almost their entire lives together, and each one knew the other one's bad habits. "What would I do without you?", he joked._

_"Get lost, my dear. Totally lost." Nelly leaned against the doorframe, watching her husband pull on his thick boots and the water-proof long jacket. "And you're sure you have to go out in this storm?"_

_He nodded. "I have to pull the boat ashore… if the storm hasn't_ _already_ _taken it. You'd think an old fisherman like me would know how to predict such a weather…"_

_"An old fisherman indeed. Perhaps you're losing your touch?" She giggled in gentle teasing._

_Howard frowned, knowing not to let her rub on him. "Never anything like that, Nelly. This is in your blood until the day you die."_

_"If you say so, darling. Don't be too long, I'll prepare dinner." She smiled, waving lightly when he turned to the door._

_Closing it behind him, the warm cosiness of the small house was replaced with the screaming winds and hard rain of a thunderstorm. The lighthouse tower next to the house stubbornly stuck its tip into the darkened skies, the circling beam reaching into the greys and blacks in vain attempts to chase them off. A_ _couple hundred meters below the cliff the_ _waves were hitting the rocks hard enough to be heard clearly even over the flooding rain. L_ _ightening bolts sizzled zig-zag lines across the almost black clouds, immediately followed by a_ _loud clash of thunder roaring through the heavy air._ _Their small, thin headland growing out of South Island stuck far into the wide sea, and the shallows in front of the coast were dangerous. The lighthouse was important._

_Howard pulled his collar as high up as he could, defensively ducking his head into the jacket. It didn't help much fighting in off the biting winds, and soon every part of him not covered by his jacket was drenched. Jogging along a small path, the otter noticed idly that years ago the weather probably wouldn't have felt as annoying as it did now. Maybe Nelly was right saying the two of them weren't twenty anymore. Regardless of that, he was the lighthouse keeper, even in a storm like this. Especially in a storm like this.  
_

_Additionally, a proper lighthouse keeper needed his boat, the quickest way into town. It was a principle thing, and Howard didn't want to lose it. So, he was jogging through this hostile late afternoon, heading for the small bay where the boat was kept, letting the rain soak his fur and leaning into the strong, gusty winds, trying his best not to get blown off._

_Nelly was right about many things. He was a stubborn old idiot at times._

_A small smile flickered on the otter's grim face at the thought as he climbed down the last few meters of sharp rocks towards the beach. Pebbles and sea shells crunching underfoot, he made his way over to the pear. His face lit up when he reached it. There it was, his boat, tossing violently against the rope that secured it in place, but so far it had managed to withstand the stormy waves._

_Five minutes later Howard had pulled his precious belongings onto the stony beach. Panting lightly, the otter stood next to it and looked out over the sea. The water appeared almost black on spots. Just the fuming whiteness of the raging crests kept it from looking just like the dark grey sky above._

_Standing and watching the spectacle for a moment, the otter couldn't possibly miss the dot of colour being thrown around between the high waves._

_Lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the hard rain, he strainedly tracked it, lost sight of it several times, but always found it back as the waves washed it closer and close to the shore. Howard moved closer to the water, staring at the thing when it popped up behind a wave's ridge again. A red and white ring spinning and bobbing in the dark floods, holding a small, limp frame of dark blue._

_"Good chaos…", the old lighthouse keeper muttered, running up to the water until he stood right next to it. Nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he waited for the ring to reach the shallow water. He knew that jumping in in a blind hurry was more dangerous and stupid than helpful for anyone._

_The minute it took until the striped ring got itself stuck between rocks in the shallow water felt like a lifespan. Finally ignoring common sense's warnings, Howard waded through the still near hip-deep water, with just a detached part of his attention looking out for the waves pulling the soil from under his feet. The otter fearfully looked at the stranded one, his face paling a little more upon realizing it was a child, clearly not older than five or six. It was a hedgehog, the blue quills heavy with wetness and almost matching the sea's dark shade. The little body draped powerlessly over the plastic ring, arms across it, but the head rested above the water surface._

_Praying to the God of the Seas he'd never actually even believed in, Howard reached out, grabbing the child under its armpits and lifted it up, hurrying back onto currently not so dry land. Carefully laying the small form down, he had little hopes when he started searching for signs of life, but it seemed the little hedgehog meant to surprise him. He had to get this kid out of the cold. Opening his jacket and scooping up the hedgehog, Howard found he was surprisingly light, and not so surprisingly spiky. It took him some efforts moving the little body under his jacket so he could hold him securely, then he hurried back to the lighthouse, into the warmth and to the care of his wife._

* * *

"We brought him here in the next morning. We tried finding out who he is, but he is either too small or doesn't remember much. At the moment we have just a name that sounds like it's not a real name but a pet name of sorts. Who calls their kid Sonic?" Nelly sighed.

A strained frown was digging itself into Knuckles' brow as he tried to digest the story, and fit it into what he knew about Sonic. Suddenly he realized that he knew very little about the blue hedgehog, even after all this time they knew each other. Sonic had rarely mentioned his childhood to Knuckles... Okay, Knuckles didn't talk about his childhood to Sonic either, but Sonic was the talkative one of them... And now Knuckles was left wondering why Sonic never talked about his past. Maybe because there wasn't much past to talk about?

Finally noticing Nelly was staring at him, the echidna struggled to find something to say that wouldn't be suspiscious and finally settled for a question. "He doesn't remember what?"

The woman nodded. "We don't know. Traumas, especially in so young children, can result in a case of memory loss, affecting the traumatizing event. He couldn't tell us how he got to be in the sea. He might remember something later, but nobody can tell how much and what."

Knuckles looked down on his feet. "Anything about his family?"

"Apparently he was with his parents. No sign of them yet, though." Nelly's soft gaze briefly flicked over to the sleeping hedgehog in the next room. "He speaks of an Uncle Chuck, but without a surname it will be hard to find him. The police have tried, but not near all Mobians are officially recorded. As it is, no-one seems to know much about a little hedgehog called Sonic. If that even is a real name." Nelly sighed. "Who knows? He's likely too small to know most of the important things. He's only five." She paused for a heavy moment of utter silence. "The only thing the investigation came up with is that during the storm a ship sunk about 80 miles offshore of South Island. As far as we know, there are no survivors… other than little Sonic in there. The police said the ship came from a place called Christmas Island, an isle popular to many people. Maybe he's a Christmas Island native. Maybe his family was just on a holiday trip there. Ferries are always full, and tourists come from pratically everywhere on Mobius." She let out a deep breath. "Nothing that helps us." Her eyes wandered over to the still Knuckles sitting next to her. "Can you?"

The echidna looked into her expectant face for a moment, then lowered his gaze. "I'm sorry… I wish I could."

She nodded understandingly. "Well, that's not your fault."

Knuckles inclined his head, remaining silent. She was right. It wasn't his fault. He couldn't just go and tell her he was a time traveller that would get to know this little orphan in six years from now. Impossible. Most likely she wouldn't believe him, and if that little Sonic saw him, he'd probably recognize him later when they actually met. Telling her he knew Sonic would maybe cause one of these paradoxes Sonic, the older Sonic, had said they had to try avoiding if they didn't want to change history's course in unpredictable ways.

And anyway, what did he know that could be of help for this little blue hedgehog in the room across of him? He thought Sonic had mentioned an Uncle Chuck once or twice, but Knuckles had never met him, let alone had any idea where to find the guy. No, Knuckles knew nothing helpful about Sonic at all, and for reasons he wasn't entirely able to pinpoint, the notion stung uncomfortably. If at all, what Nelly had just told him had been new to him. He had learned something totally unexpected about Sonic today, something that seemed to explain even his sometimes so idiotic hydrophobia.

"No, it's not my fault, but that doesn't help him, either." He stood up and sighed upon glancing at the sleeping hedgehog, feeling an unfamilar pang of pity. He didn't usually pity _Sonic_. There was never any need for that... He was Sonic. Anything like pity was out of place there. Still, he looked so... _tiny_...

Nelly stood up as well, her hazel eyes resting on Sonic even as she spoke. "No."

"Who will take care of him now?", Knuckles couldn't keep himself from asking.

"Hopefully some family will be found. If he's got an uncle out there, we'll find him. I'll find him." She sighed. "I have to. And he better be enthusiastic about raising his little blue nephew." A little, but fierce smile pushed the gentle concern off her face and Knuckles realized she wasn't merely as caring as she'd appeared so far, but could probably get her ways across pretty well if she wanted to.

A small smirk formed on his face as well and Knuckles nodded, not mentioning he would probably win the bet that this particular little hedgehog would be a pain to bring up. "Yeah. Anyway, I'm sorry I couldn't do anything useful."

The purple otter nodded, the warmth quickly pooling back into her eyes. "It's okay. Thank you anyway."

Knuckles shook his head. "I wasn't of any help, was I?"

She shrugged, offering him a smile he didn't think he deserved. "It was good talking about it, I think. You're a good listener."

The echidna blinked. "You're the first person ever saying that."

Nelly appeared surprised. "Really? Well, someone's gotta start it, right? There's a first for everything."

"I guess so, yes." Knuckles nodded awkwardly, suddenly remembering he should perhaps be going. "Oh, could you still tell me which way out of here is again?" A sheepish smile fought its way to his face.

He earned a smile back. "Of course."

After hearing out her directions and saying his goodbye, Knuckles briefly looked at the little blue hedgehog one last time. _Good luck, little guy. See you in six years on my island, and then I'm gonna punch you in the face._ A smile dashed over his features at the thought. _But you know, we'll both get over it. It won't be the last time, anyway. You're too much of an annoying brat at times.  
_

* * *

Crawling out from underneath the machine, Tails wheezed out a deep sigh. "That was the last screw to tighten I think," he said, turning the screwdriver around in his hands and looking over to his raccoon friend.

Archibald's eyes lay fixed on the machine and he shot Tails just a short glance at his words. "Doesn't look too bad for improvised, doesn't it?"

Nodding his head in a small onset of pride, the two-tailed fox cast his eyes over their work again. In less than nine hours they had gotten it up from blank papers over blue prints to finished and hopefully functional. Now it filled up a good third of the large laboratory. In the center of layers of electrical wires, capacitors and Tesla coils about the size of Tails himself sat a large ring, three meters in diameter, the metal material it was made from glazing in polished silver.

Connected by probably miles of cables to the observatory's equipment, this ring was the most vital part of their creation. A loop antenna of a kind never build before, not even by Robotnik. The only machine ever created to track down a chaos field impulse, hold on to it and redirect it to its center. A programmed chaos control…

If it worked.

If not... Tails bit his lip. He didn't want to think about that. Nobody could tell where Sonic and Knuckles were at the moment, or worse, _if_ they still were...

The feeling wasn't exactly new to Tails, but that didn't make it any better at all. He had been through several occassions of Sonic or another one of his friends had been missing, or thought dead. He would never get used to it. He didn't want to. Everytime again, he hoped deeply he would never go through this horror again. The waiting, the often useless attempts to find out where his missing friends were, if they were alright, and the equally often useless attempts to help them.

Sometimes, Tails felt like it was his fault they didn't get back quickly. Sonic never got lost in _normal_ situations. Every now and then, Tails wished the hedgehog would just lose his directions on the way home and end up in some part of a city he didn't know, asking around for a map. No, Sonic never got merely _lost_. He always ended up shooting himself into space, got stuck in parallel dimensions, or was almost killed by giant robots and monsters that looked like they came right from the bottom of _hell_. Tails wanted to help. He hated knowing Sonic in danger and being of no use to him.

Essentially, that was what he usually felt like. Sonic ran off and something awful happened. Then, Tails struggled to help him, somehow, someway. Sometimes, he found a way. Most of the time Sonic managed to come back on his own at some point, thankfully alive and in one piece, more or less. It was the less that worried Tails sick. He wanted to help. He wanted to make sure his best friend and only family member would come back, without getting half killed or anything equally horrifying.

Unfortunately, like most times, all he could do was _try_. _Try_. Sometimes it seemed such a pathetic thing.

There was nobody to guarantee him their chaos control antenna machine would work as intended. They thought it would, but it was a prototype. Something the world had never seen before. When they activated it, it would be little more than a test run, a blind shot in the dark.

Tails hated the idea they were basically shooting at Sonic and Knuckles, but there was nothing much he could do. There was just one chance. They would have to take it.

Shaking off his thoughts, Tails focused back on the professor, struggling to stay professional and occupy his mind with something else but worries. "How are our programs?"

"Online and functional, as it seems." The yellow raccoon pointed at the screen, skipping on the long pause and the depressed notion Tails was sure was as clear on his face as painted there in the brightest neon colors.

In a way, Tails was glad the professor didn't press him to talk about what was obvious anyway. Instead, he found a hand on his shoulder that offered a friendly pat. Nothing like a brotherly hug from Sonic, but it felt warm and a tad bit reassuring. He gave the raccoon a grateful smile.

Archibald smiled back, squeezing his shoulder again, then returning his look to the screens. "We got clear track of both fields."

Tails nodded, deciding to be happy with that bit of good news at the moment. "Perfect. Let's hope we keep them. How long to the next peak?"

"Thirteen hours. We might as well take a break, Tails."

If he was being honest with himself, the young fox knew he needed one. He was beyond tired by now. There wasn't anything he could do at the moment anyway, so he reluctantly agreed.

* * *

A white-gloved hand was waved in front of his face. "Knuckles?! Hey, Mobius to Angel Island, come in!"

Snapping out of his thoughts, the red echidna stared at Sonic, standing next to him on the pavement just in front of the hospital. "What?"

The blue hedgehog tilted his head at him, a slight frown on his face. "Are you okay? You kinda zoned out on me there!"

For another moment Knuckles could only stare at the hedgehog. What should he say to him, anyway? That he'd just seen a ten years younger version of him and was contemplating to never make any jokes on his hydrophobia again? What would Sonic do? Run back in there to see it himself? Knuckles couldn't let him do that, so he better kept his quiet.

"Knuckles? Hello?" Sonic walked in front of him, watching him with a look of rarely seen worry.

The echidna was well aware he was expecting an answer, but his brain was still busy noticing Sonic had grown to more than twice the size he'd apparently once been. It wasn't like Knuckles saw children every day, let alone get shown how one of his friends had looked like as a little kid. He was somewhat lost for words. "I.. I just got some stuff on my mind, I think. This whole time travel thing…"

"Uh-hu." Sonic nodded, visibly relaxing when Knuckles finally answered him. "And your first encounter with hospitals."

"Yeah, that too." Knuckles smiled, doing his best to shove his thoughts aside. Hoping it might help, he finally focussed on their surroundings.

Usually, Knuckles would have rated the air on the streets of the city as stinky. Right now, it felt fresh as paradise as he closed his eyes for a second, deeply filling his lungs with it, more than glad to get the smell that had occupied all the corridors and rooms of the building out of his nostrils. How where people supposed to recover from illnesses and stuff in that atmosphere? The brightly white furniture and all those people rushing around didn't actually help making the place any more comfy to stay at… Once again Knuckles was stricken by the thought of how weird the surface dwellers were. But as it seemed, at least their healers knew their medicine. His arm had gotten to the decision to throb dully, but it was bearable.

"I think they are glad we're gone in there," Sonic spoke up again. "I guess they think we're nuts."

"Doesn't matter what they think, but it seems you were right. They did not bad at the doctoring," the echidna noticed.

Sonic smiled. "It's their job, Knuckles, they do it all day."

Knuckles looked over to his friend. "Hm. I'm happy to be out of there again."

The blue hedgehog chuckled. "Nobody's fond of hospitals, I guess. That goes for you as much as for everybody else. You are maybe less different from us non-Angel-Island people than you think."

Knuckles frowned. "Hmm," he grunted doubtfully.

Sonic grinned. "Come on and let's get somewhere more comfortable, what do you think? I think we deserve it. It was quite a day, and I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry, hedgehog." Knuckles earned a mockingly hurt look and tried to irgnore it. That was his usual reaction to it, anyway, but it seemed he was having a weak moment right now. His stomach felt weird, and he decided to take it as hunger and not as 'I'm about to be sick'.

"Actually, that sounds not too bad," he allowed, "I've had nothing all day."

"Let's find ourselves a nice place to hang out then." Sonic started walking along the street, but stopped when Knuckles didn't follow.

The echidna was frowning again, disturbed by the hedgohog's sudden display of relaxation. "Are you sure we should be just walking around in public here?"

Sonic shrugged casually. "Why not? It's five years before Eggman turned up. Nobody ever heard of Sonic the Hedgehog or Knuckles the Echidna from Angel Island. The mere existence of your place is still somewhat of a mystery. This is one of the first times in our lives we can walk along the street without anyone recognizing us at all and no robots turning up to hit or shoot us. We should enjoy it!"

Processing the thought, Knuckles could only agree. Sonic was right. "You got a point." Knuckles nodded stiffly and quickly moved to catch up with the hedgehog.

The hedgehog laughed. "No reason for hurrying," he said and shot him a smiling side-glance. "We don't have to rush anything, do we? There are no enemies stealing our Emeralds right behind the next corner."

Knuckles tilted his head at Sonic, finally managing to find his dry tone back. "We don't have any. If we had any, we might be closer to getting back home."

"Do you always have to be so negative?" Sonic shook his head, ears twitching. "Really, we're stuck in a strange time, weird stuff happens and you got your arm busted. We need a bit of good spirit. You could at least _try_ , you know?"

"Uh." The red echidna ran his flat left hand down his long spines, not sure why he felt suddenly embarrassed. "Sorry?"

"I don't really mind, I guess," the hedgehog assured, grinning good-naturedly. "It's who you are. And everybody needs to be himself, so you're just fine."

Knuckles smiled, although he didn't know why he did. He didn't really follow Sonic's logic in the last few sentences of their conversation, but for once he thought he had not been trying to insult him, his Emerald or his ancestry. For a moment they walked in companionable silence along the traffic-stuffed road, then the echidna remembered another thing that had stuck out to him. "Sonic?"

"Hmm?"

"What's tetanus?"

"An illness, kind of an infection you can get when injured," the hedgehog explained simply, not giving Knuckles any chance to determine if his question had been stupid again now or not. "It was pretty dangerous in former times and many people died on it, today you get such a small shot against it and that's it. In the past, I guess you could get a bad fever or catalepsy."

Knuckles nodded. "Then I think I know what we're talking about. Why do you use so weird words down here?"

Sonic laughed. "Dunno. Sounds stylish maybe… Or it makes people feel smart. Like when Tails says things like electro-muon-plasma-" He ran out of words to add to his chain at that point and decided to finish with a "thingy".

Knuckles raised an eyebrow. As he thought before, the surface people were odd… In the past as much as in the present time.

* * *

"So? How do you like it?" Dropping leisurely into a chair, Sonic gestured around. The small restaurant was situated at a small square, just a narrow street separating them from the beach. The ocean twinkled as a sea of sapphires and the sky above was a flawless coat of cyan.

"It's nice alright," Knuckles agreed, sitting himself across of Sonic, carefully resting his arm in a position approaching comfortable. "You seem to know the place pretty well."

Sonic shrugged. "I grew up around here."

"Where'd you live? Just asking so we don't run into you or something…" From the very corner of his eyes Knuckles watched his friend suspiciously.

The hedgehog had grabbed a piece of paper lying on the table and seemed more interested in reading it than listening to Knuckles. "Almost outside town, at my Uncle Chuck's." He was silent for a moment before looking up from his paper. "It was nice there."

"Your uncle?" Trying to pretend a bit of disinterest, Knuckles studied his cast.

"Yeah," Sonic willingly replied, still utterly clueless. "I once asked what had happened to my parents and they told me they died in a bad accident. I didn't ask much. I was happy. I had my own room, a swing in the garden and all that stuff you love when you're small. Of course, there was stuff he did I didn't enjoy so much." Sonic chuckled a little at the memory. "Him insisting I took bathes every so often, or my going to school for example. By now I think it was good he forced me to, kinda. A kid's gotta learn reading and stuff, right?"

Knuckles smiled, briefly looking up at Sonic. "I suppose so. Strange fit of common sense coming from _you._ "

Sonic laughed. "It's not like I don't have any of it. Just not very much, and I rarely listen to it." For a moment he watched his fingers drumming onto the table. "No, I think I was pretty lucky I had him. Everyone needs a place to come and go whenever you need. He never complained… You know, even when I was small, I sometimes just had this feeling of… having to go. Not because the place wasn't nice, it's about the going itself. There's always been something driving me away, not necessarily for long, but away. Seeing something else, just… moving, running. I dunno what it is, but it's always been in me. Not many people understand. Tails does. And my uncle did. I explained it once and he just understood. He understood a hell of a lot of things…"

Knuckles just looked at him. They didn't talk often, Sonic and him, and even more rarely on things so personal. Trying to take in what the hedgehog tried to explain, Knuckles wondered for a moment if Sonic felt something that could be compared to his need of returning home to Angel Island after a time spend elsewhere… just the other way around. "What happened to him?", the echidna asked, finally stopping to examine the white cast on his arm.

"Robotnik happened." The smile quickly vanished from Sonic's face. "It's probably the only thing I will never forgive him. That he builds robots trying to toast me, electrocute me or cut me apart… okay. But not that…" His gaze dropped down onto his hands.

"… I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked." Knuckles uncomfortably shifted his weight. It wasn't often you could look behind Sonic's casual demeanour, and it was intimidating to say the least.

"Nah, it's fine. Been a long time, huh?" Sonic looked back up at him, a small smirk already fighting off the seriousness. "And it's a thing we all share. Tails never had a family before I found him, I lost mine, and you… you don't remember your folks either, do you?"

Knuckles shook his head. "No. I've always been by myself up there." He tilted his head, realizing he'd never contemplated the parallels between them. "What about the others? Cream's got her mum… What's with Amy?"

Sonic shrugged. "No idea. I have never really talked to her about stuff like that. She's just kind of... _there_ , running after me. Now that I think about it, I have really no idea what she does when she's not following me around. Maybe she has a family after all. She's got a last name..." The blue hedgehog shrugged again, reaching for the paper again. "Now if you ask me, that was enough of the serious talk for today. This whole time travel thing blows my head bad enough…And I'm gonna starve if I don't get anything soon."

The red echidna chuckled, half-heartedly cursing himself for this anew moment of weakness as he gave in. "What's on the menu?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sonic's past is a thing that was never really touched in the games at all. It's kind of funny once you think about it. They have backstories for Shadow, for Tails, we even know more about Eggman's past and family than we know about the main protagonist's. I've been resisting to write anything on it for more than four years, but I couldn't resist a little shot at it forever. This is a time travel story. I pretty much gave myself carte blanche for all sorts of things like that.


	11. Detached

After quite a lot of Sonic's proclaimed emergency money had been spent on their dinner, the two friends concluded they really didn't have the money for a hotel room. Luckily, the summer night was promising to be mildly warm. They had headed out of town again and upon finding a small clearing next to a softly gurgling creek decided to stay there for now.

Now darkness had fallen and since time travel apparently was a rather exhausting activity, there had been not much talk. There had been a lot more talk than both of them were used to earlier, anyways…

Knuckles shifted on the thick moss and grass. It was actually rather comfortable, and yet he was unable to get any shut-eye, what was at least partly to be blamed on his broken arm. Whatever stuff he'd been given back at the hospital, it had been good while it lasted, but by now it had clearly worn off and the injured limb was throbbing angrily, every beat of his heart pouring liquid fire down from his elbow to his wrist.

In an act of almost reflex Knuckles had once again tried getting a grip on the Master Emerald's power, but the incomprehendable barriers were still there. He couldn't feel it, and of course this particular fact prevented any use of the magical energy to ease pain and speed up the healing process. Knuckles couldn't remember when he had not felt at least a little stroke of soothing Emerald warmth tending his hurts. Normally, it was there even if he didn't actively strive for it.

Guardianship was more than sitting and watching over the Master Emerald to keep evil minds from abusing its powers. It was a bond, a bond closer than anything else Knuckles knew. The Master Emerald was a part of him, and he was a part of it. It was a symbiosis; on the long run Knuckles wasn't sure if he could exist without the Master. It could for sure exist without him, had done so for thousands or millions of years, possibly eternity; but could it exist without any guardian? Knuckles didn't know, but knew the Emerald cared for its guardians just as much as they cared for it. Without each other, neither was… complete.

Knuckles didn't expect anyone could ever understand this feeling. He knew from rare conversations with Sonic on the topic that turning super and unifying your body and soul with the seven Chaos Emeralds was a similar thing; but unlike the link between Knuckles and the Master Emerald it was always temporary. After a short time, you'd turn back to normal, breaking the bond that had formed. Knuckles guessed a part of it stayed behind, was always present in those who could interact with the Emeralds.

Now, torn loose from the time and place and Emerald he belonged to, there was no caring flow of the Master's energy tending his wounds. There was just the pain… and the emptiness. Emptiness from inside, and Knuckles wasn't sure if the broken bone or the broken bond hurt more. Anyway, both combined made for a level of discomfort that didn't allow any realistic thoughts on sleep.

Once more rolling over, the red echidna tried again finding a comfortable position in the moss. He was tired, he really was. If you'd never experienced real pain, you couldn't tell how utterly exhausting it was. Odd, Knuckles mused, that the same thing mostly causing his grogginess was what kept him from finding rest.

Sonic was a different matter; no worries about being lost in time and space seemed capable of disturbing his sleep. The blue hedgehog had tucked into a loose ball, using one arm as a pillow, the large, blue quills lying in relaxed curves. He wasn't actually snoring, but Knuckles' ears were sharp, the night was quiet and so the echidna could hear his friend's deep, calm breathing.

Combined with the gently gurgling creek, after a while Knuckles didn't find the sound so annoying anymore. It was a regular sound, mending in nicely with the small noises of the night time forest around. By now too tired to contemplate his worries anymore, Knuckles found himself just listening to it. After a while the echidna slipped into that certain light slumber that had you drifting between a half-awareness and bizarre dreams, a confusing semi-reality completely blurring the border between what was real and what was just a construction of your imagination. The stars were already beginning to dim when exhaustion finally did its job and Knuckles was granted dreamless, deep sleep.

When he awoke from it there was sunlight on his face and he could tell by the way he felt as if run over by one of Eggman's bigger and uglier vehicle creations that whatever today was going to bring, it wasn't going to be his day for sure. Sitting up reluctantly, he ran his hand over his face with a groan.

"I was about to say 'Good morning', but you don't look as if you'd agree with me."

Knuckles turned his head, finding Sonic sitting crossed-legged on the grass, a pile of fruits in front of him. He carefully crawled to his feet and stumbled the few steps over to the creek. "No."

The expected sarcastic reply about morning people or his mood didn't come. Sonic remained quiet while Knuckles took a drink and splashed some water on his face. Most confused by this abnormal silence the echidna turned around, finding his friend sitting still and watching him, head titled aside and a notion of concern on his face.

Meeting Knuckles' gaze Sonic dropped his, indicating the fruits before him. "I searched around for some breakfast while you were still asleep," he said. "I thought it might be better trying to spare our money. You like these, don't you?"

Knuckles nodded, sitting next to the hedgehog and accepting the grapes held out at him. Saying he liked him would be an understatement. They were his favourite food, and he was secretly as crazy for them as Sonic for his beloved chilli dogs. Putting the first of the small, green fruits into his mouth, he felt a bit of delight surge through him at the sweet taste. There were grapes and grapes, and these were _grapes_.

Sonic didn't say anything while Knuckles finished the bunch of grapes he'd been given, but held out another portion when the echidna finished the last. Spirits lifted a little, Knuckles shot him a thankful smile.

Chewing lazily on an apple, Sonic watched Knuckles eat. "Better?", he asked softly when the echidna finished and Knuckles nodded.

"Yeah…"

The blue hedgehog smiled. "Good breakfast makes up for a crappy night."

Knuckles cocked an eyebrow. "Is it that obvious, huh?"

"Pretty much." Sonic shrugged. "Take it easy. Happens to all of us once in a while."

The guardian grunted in annoyance. Still, he actually felt a little better now, and the circumstances irked him a little.

"So," Sonic spoke up again. "You feeling ready to beat this day?"

"How do you plan on beating it?"

"I dunno, try to find a way back home I guess."

Knuckles supressed a groan. "Wonderful plan. Be my guide then…"

Shaking his head, Sonic looked at him with a strange mingle of exasperation and honest to chaos apology on his face. "Hey, I'm really sorry, but I don't know anything we could do either. What I do know is that if we just sit around here we won't find anything that helps us, so we can at least go and try doing… y'know, _something_."

Knuckles sighed. "Yeah, right, I guess you... got a point there."

"See?" A small smile was back on Sonic's face, pushing apology away for exasperation to stay behind, though not as obvious as before. "Then heads up and let's go."

"Alright." Knuckles finally stood up. For a moment he looked around cluelessly, and then decided he could as well take it out on Sonic. "Which way then, smart-ass?"

The blue hedgehog chuckled, also exasperation gone all of a sudden. "I like you better that way," he grinned.

Knuckles smiled a little in spite of himself. "Then do your best getting us out of this mess."

"Will do!" Sonic's grin broadened as he mimicked a salute, then he pointed into an apparently randomly chosen direction. "Away we go!"

About to ask what qualified that way as a better choice than the other possible directions, Knuckles had already opened his mouth, but he closed it again without a sound. He was tingling. A second after it started, his head started to throb adizziness sweeped over him in a numbing rush.

"What the…?" Through slightly blurred vision, he stared at Sonic.

The hedgehog was clutching his head, face crunched up and ears flattened against his head. "Not… again…", he pressed out.

Knuckles wanted to answer him, but the world around him, including his blue friend, was going ever brighter and brighter until everything was white. Whatever Knuckles had planned on saying was lost somewhere on the way from his brain to his mouth. It was as if both were stopping to exist. His head felt as if a thick wedge was slowly driving into his brains, splitting his skull and its contents in two. The echidna remembered trying to reach for his forehead, but he couldn't move and then he was falling through an endless tunnel of white nothingness.

He landed surprisingly on his feet, struggling to keep any sort of balance without knowledge on which way was up or down or… _something_. It took another couple of seconds until the brightness dimmed away and the headache dulled. Blinking his eyes rapidly to adjust his hazy vision, Knuckles' head whirled around, trying to get used to what was around him.

Turning one time on the spot, he found he was standing on a squared of some sort, surrounded by tall buildings that seemed to be constructed entirely out of glass, or at least some other mirroring surface. Akin to the skyscrapers of Metropolis, the buildings struck high up into the sky, the glazing walls spotted with large neon light signs in brightly glowing colours.

He'd landed in some kind of big city, and just as expected he wasn't alone. A dozen pairs of eyes were staring back at him, filled with disbelief, confusion, shock. Not quite surprising, Knuckles mused, he'd probably look the same if someone suddenly fell out of thin air right in front of him. He was still searching for something remotely intelligent to say when the so far silent Mobians around him picked up an exited murmur.

An orange chameleon dressed in knee-high boots made out of some sort of silvery material stretched his arm out, pointing a finger in an equally silver glove at the red echidna. "Police! Someone call the police!"

"Hey, take it easy, will ya?" Knuckles didn't think he need any more trouble.

"Leave him alone!", a person behind him shouted when the echidna all but lifted his hand in what was supposed to turn into a calming gesture. A pair of hands grabbed his shoulder.

Knuckles twisted away. "Hey!"

"Police!", someone called again. "A teleporter!"

Not really having the time to look at the person, Knuckles managed to yank free of the Mobians trying to restrain him. He ducked away and made a quick dash out of the mob. Truth be told, he had no idea where he was going, but he knew staying here wasn't quite the best idea. He didn't really feel like picking a fight. He was hardly a push-over and rarely actually minded a quarrel with anyone, but he was one arm down, his head stilll felt nothing short of weird, and he was confused. Actually, he didn't even know what he'd done wrong or who these people were...

Running to the edge of the square and down a broad road that followed, Knuckles found that the way he'd chosen by chance didn't bring him away from people. Standing on weird things that looked like tiny floating platforms with a vertical stick attached to them, numerous Mobians of different races and colours were speeding down was seemed a lot like a local highway.

"Strange sorta Gear," Knuckles mumbled under his breath as he hastened past them. The things actually reminded him of Extreme Gear, they just didn't have the streak of energy trailing them. Trying to keep to the side of the road and avoid collisions with the rather speedy vehicles Knuckles hasted onwards.

The sound of sirens behind let his head turn around to look over his shoulder. Slaloming around the traffic, two riding platforms equipped with blue flashing lights manned by two koalas in black and grey uniforms were right on his tail.

Allowing a curse to slip through his lips, Knuckles turned back around, for once wishing he was as fast of a runner as Sonic. It wasn't that he was slow, in fact he was quite a quick-footed fellow, but unlike his blue friend, Knuckles didn't outrun things like fast cars or Extreme Gear boards and bikes. A hasty glace back proved him right that also the strange platform things belonged to that category of stuff that was unfortunately faster than him.

Grimly Knuckles shot a look around. Change of strategies then… He flanked over the low beam barrier, apparently a green-tinted force field spanned along the road, and headed right for the wall of the closest sky scraper. _See if they can climb on these things…_

Lashing out with his left fist, the echidna drove the spikes spearheading his namesakes into the wall. Even though it looked like glass, it either was something entirely different or a special glass of some sort. Unlike he had feared, the mirroring material didn't splinter when he punched out at it. Like stone… "Good then," he muttered, pulling his feet up against the wall as well.

Although a natural climber and very, very experienced at it, his progress was almost ridiculous. He had only one hand to use. The first meters he thought he would just fall down again, then he found a way how to time the process of shifting his weight as much into the wall as possible, pull his spikes free, and quickly move his hand up for another hold before he fell down. It was straining and the timing required concentration, but he was actually progressing upwards.

"Hey! Come down here immediately, citizen! You are under arrest!"

Glancing down, Knuckles found the two policemen had stopped and where standing under him, one of them gesturing with what looked uncomfortably like a gun.

"What'd I do?!", Knuckles called down, in vague hope he could clear whatever misunderstanding was going on here.

"You have been observed performing an illegal teleportation, prohibited by the tenth anti-teleportation act, paragraph twelve and following. There's no need denying anything, more than twenty citizens have seen you. If you hand yourself over now, we will refrain from using violence."

Knuckles shook his head, more to himself than the two below. "This is nuts… just nuts. Illegal teleportation paragraph whatsoever. Screw you guys…" He continued to climb higher.

"I repeat this one last time, you are under arrest. Get away from this wall!", the policeman shouted.

"As if," Knuckles mumbled, not stopping or even looking down again. They wouldn't actually shoot him while he was climbing… would they?

"We warned you!"

"Yeah, yeah… you –" Shooting a quick glance down, the echidna stared at the police guys. One of them was still holding the presumed gun, the other some sort of even larger thing. Rocket launcher…? "They're not really serious…"

A second later Knuckles knew they were indeed serious. The tip of the gun pointing at him gave a pulsing glow like some of Eggman's laser weapons tended to do before they fired, then a pale blue bolt of light shot out of it. Knuckles tried to dodge as good as he could hanging in a rather slippery wall by just two of his knucklespikes. The light hit his left arm. It was as if icy water had been poured over it. The muscles shivered for a second or two before going limp. Knuckles struggled to keep his fist clenched so he wouldn't lose his hold, but he couldn't feel his hand anymore.

"Aaahhhhhh!"

A second shot caught him in his back as he fell. It stole his control over the rest of his body and he fell like a sack, unable to do anything about it. His mind struggled to regain the control it had lost and twist his fall into a safe glide, but his body wouldn't respond.

The fall ended abruptly, cushioned by a softly glowing round projected into thin air by the thing Knuckles had thought was a rocket launcher. It held him about a foot above the ground for a couple of seconds, then the officer operating the mysterious device lowered it and the energy carpet or whatever you could call it vanished, releasing Knuckles' dead weight and he fell the last bit onto the asphalt.

Refraining from giving a sound affirming the pain it caused, the echidna glared up at the two uniformed koalas. "Are you crazy?! I could be dead!"

The officer with the force field throwing rocket launcher thing shrugged quite uninterested. "It's your own fault. Criminals are treated without mercy." He turned to his comrade. "Search him for weapons."

Kneeling down next to Knuckles, the policeman checked him for pockets on shoes or gloves. The echidna tried to twist away, but he couldn't move a muscle.

Apparently seeing the struggle on his face, the first officer spoke up again. "You'll regain the ability to move in about twenty minutes by the strength of the shot. But by that time you'll already be locked away where you can't commit any more crimes."

Knuckles shot him a death glare, but remained silent.

"Sir, I can't find any weapons. Neither his teleporting device or his ID."

"Probably dropped it somewhere. We'll call for backup and tell them to search for his things on the way to the station. If they don't find his ID, checking the hospitals for who treated this arm of his should help us identifying him." The officer turned back to Knuckles on the ground. "Or do you have anything interesting to say? Your name, profession, identification number?"

Unable to even turn his head away, Knuckles closed his eyes. He hated being that helpless.

"Didn't think so," the policeman continued. "Remind me that the observers of his crime should be asked if anyone can confirm his identity."

"I can't even really pinpoint his _species_ ," the other officer noticed.

"Some kind porcupine or hedgehog. Spiky." Opening his eyes again, Knuckles looked up at his captors. They were slowly walking a few steps away from him. "Call the transporter so we can get him in a cell."

Knuckles let his eyes fall close again. Had he thought he was screwed before? He had been wrong. _Now_ he was screwed. Epically.

* * *

Anxiously Tails paced the room, every two to three seconds staring up at the screen recording the fields' activity. "Come on…"

If Archibald was as nervous as Tails he did a good job of hiding it. The professor sat in his chair, not quite upright, but alert yet calm eyes keeping the graphs in view. "I guess we're almost there, Tails."

Tails moved to stand next to him. "Should I activate the Emerald?"

Archibald nodded tightly, sitting upright and flexing his fingers. "Go for it."

Complying, Tails pulled a lever on their makeshift dashboard, connecting the Chaos Emerald he'd taken out of the Tornado to the current of their machine. For a couple seconds the lighting in the lab flickered erratically, then it stabilized and the big ring was glowing in the Emerald's purple colour.

"The Emerald's ready!", the fox announced.

"The fields are reaching peak in… three…two… one…NOW!" The raccoon's hand slammed down onto a giant button in front of him.

The purple Emerald was glowing like a tiny sun, every inch of wiring making up the machine starting to steam the same violet light. The neon lights on the ceiling made a cracking noise before shutting down and the power generator attached to the machine blew up like a huge firecracker.

Acting before he even fully realized what was going on, Tails hit the emergency switch, keeping the damage from claiming the rest of the lab's equipment.

Just a moment later, a strange silence filled the large room, the broken generator hiccupping out small flames and sparks, and the Chaos Emerald's shine slowly dimming back to normal. Also the antenna ring had stopped glowing.

Tails took a few deep breaths. There was no Sonic or Knuckles magically back with them, just an amount of busted machinery. "It didn't work…", he whispered, crumbling into a chair.

Archibald nodded numbly, just looking at the young fox. They didn't need words to know neither had an idea what had gone wrong.


	12. Brave New World

By the time the brightness behind his eyes faded slowly and the headache dulled away, Sonic instead noticed he was feeling his knees a lot more than was usual. Shaking his head to chase of the remaining dizziness, the hedgehog picked himself up, brushing his hands down his legs where he'd apparently hit the floor. After he'd ascertained he'd received nothing worse than slight sore spots, Sonic looked around.

The hard soil he'd landed on turned out to not be soil at all. Rather, it was glazed tiling, polished to near perfection. A pale, slightly blue-tinted light filled the room and the air carried the soft scent of some sort of soap that reminded him way too much of Rouge's preferred perfume. Somewhere in the ceiling above his head, a ventilator gave off a small noise that suggested something was stuck between its rotors. The wall in front of him was divided by several small doors of a kind that finally clued the disorientated hedgehog in on what sort of room he'd landed in.

"Huh. Bathroom," he muttered. Turning his head around, he now located a row of sinks as well. "Hm." Sonic shrugged to himself and strolled towards the door that looked like the exit to him.

When he stretched out his hand towards the doorknob, the white door swung open suddenly and just a quick, reflexive supersonic jump aside saved his nose from unpleasantly meeting the edge of the door. He'd just recovered when he found himself nose-to-bill with a female Mobian… swallow maybe. Some kinda bird, with purple feathers and wearing a perfume that insulted his nose even harder than the soapy scent of the bathroom.

Even though he wasn't entirely able to pinpoint her species, there was still something Sonic was very sure about concerning her. She had a very annoying, high-pitched voice. Her scream pierced right into his still slightly aching skull, causing Sonic's hands to snap upwards to cover his mutilated ears.

"Chill it, okay?!" She still didn't stop screaming and Sonic had to shout to make himself audible.

Her bill finally closed, but she stared at him with wide open eyes for a couple of long seconds, then her head slowly turned to the front of the still ajar door, remained there for another few moments before turning back to Sonic. "This is the ladies'!", she screeched.

"Oh. Uh… I must have gotten the wrong door then... Sorry," Sonic mumbled, quickly pushing past her and using some of his namesake speed to slip out into a blank corridor. A quick glance to the right revealed this direction to be a dead end and the blue hedgehog followed the corridor towards the left.

It wasn't long. Pushing the broad swinging doors open, Sonic stepped into a large room. The noise of hundreds of people chattering suddenly sounded from all around him and countless people were rushing past, shoving others out of their ways. Sonic just stopped where he was, green eyes wide with awe as he slowly took in his surroundings.

The room he'd landed in was at least as big as a stadium and just about as high. At the walls on the sides of the huge room, giant glowing tubes led vertically up towards higher, half-transparent platforms floating without any visible support a good ten meters above his head. Sonic just stood and stared as a group of Mobians walked towards the nearest glowing tube thing without altering their pace. The moment they moved into the light, they slowly started ascending as if suddenly weightless.

Sonic shook his head, forcing his eyes away from the glowy elevator things. He could see people walking on the platforms above his head, turning around what maybe were some sort of shelves. Halfway up to the next floor, large floating banners glittered in neon lighting, advertising the goods offered in the shops below, somewhere in the mess of people, glowing stuff and stands.

"Wow," Sonic breathed as he slowly walked forwards, absentmindedly dodging people, his eyes still wandering around. "This is way past cool…"

* * *

Hours had passed and only a very sensitive nose could still pick up the faint smell of charred wires. The electricity was back working and the computers apparently had survived without major damage.

Tails read through the protocols of their failed attempt the hundredth time in the past hour. "I just don't get it. What did we do wrong?"

Shaking his head in a gesture of defeat, Archibald dropped against his chair's back. "I have no idea, my friend. According to this data, something went wrong with our frequency."

"But… we got it right from scanning the Chaos Emerald! There can't be any mistakes," Tails shouted. He didn't understand why their machine had not worked. He didn't understand why he didn't understand… He was tired. He wanted Sonic and Knuckles back. Now. He had failed to help them… The little fox sniffled.

"Hey, hey, don't cry, Tails!" Standing from his chair, the older raccoon moved to comfort his younger friend, though awkwardly. In some distant corner of his mind, Tails was sure the professor had not really comforted anyone in quite a while, but the little fox appreciatedly his trying. It didn't make up for Sonic not being there, but it was much better than being all alone in this.

Deciding to go with whatever comfort he could get, Tails relaxed a little, leaned into the professor's shoulder and muffled a sob to manage speaking. "We have to help Sonic…"

"We will!" Archibald petted his back, more like one strokes a chao or other pet, but it made Tails feel a little better anyway. "We will for sure. We'll reset the frequency and try again. Maybe we entered it incorrectly or something…"

 _Frequency_. Tails started, then pulled out of the awkward hug, wiping tears from his eyes. "The frequency… We got the wrong frequency!"

"Probably, yes."

"No, we really have the wrong frequency! We got the wrong Chaos Emerald!"

The professor blinked, once, twice, thrice, then slapped his flat hand against his forehead. "How could we oversee _that_?!"

Tails excitedly trashed his double namesakes, the moment of depression melting away in lights of the discovery. "Each Emerald got a specific energy pattern. Since the chaos fields we want to catch were generated by another Emerald than ours here –"

" – also our frequency pattern can't be correct," Archibald finished for Tails. "So, we just need to get the right Emerald and – voilá!"

Tails stared at him, excitement slowly draining away again as his mind fully caught up. "There's just one problem. The Emerald we need is in Eggman's base."

"Oh."

* * *

Sonic had completely lost track of time strolling around in what he figured was some kind of mall – although that term was a serious understatement. There was so much to see, so much _new_ to see, he'd almost forgotten how he'd landed here. Hardly anything looked like things he knew...

It took a hungry growl from his stomach to get his mind back on track. Remembering that breakfast had been certainly a few hours ago also reminded him he'd not had breakfast alone… Where the heck was Knuckles?

The question unconsciously made Sonic turn a slow 360 on the spot. It wasn't really a sensible thing to do; there were so many people crowding this odd mall, so many stands selling some kind of stuff Sonic had never seen, that thinking he could just look around and discover his lost friend was if at all highly unrealistic.

Sonic frowned, his index finger brushing over the spot right below his nose. This place was huge… and pretty chaotic. How was he to find someone in here? … Granted Knuckles was even here, but the last times the weird Chaos time travel events had always dropped them not quite together but relatively close to each other. So Sonic considered his chances that the red echidna was somewhere around here better than non-existent at least.

Still, how did you best find someone who doesn't know the place if you don't know the place either and probably both of you are running around rather idiotically trying to find each other or the way out of this place neither of you knew?

The hedgehog's gaze wandered around aimlessly for a moment of thought. then he stopped at one of the elevator glow things. He was pretty sure Knuckles wouldn't set a foot in something like these things; technology he didn't understand how it worked was nothing like the echidna's speciality, but from up there he'd get a much better look around. Admittedly Sonic was also curious how a ride in this floaty elevator would be like… So it was a win-win situation, wasn't it?

Grinning to himself, the blue hedgehog pushed his way through a mass of people that hardly seemed to even register the shoves and elbows. He stopped in front of the shiny tube of energy, for a moment staring at it, then the idea how suspicious he had to look sank in and he stepped forwards into the circle of light on the floor. He barely touched it with both feet when he was lifted off and carried upwards. Much to Sonic's disappointment it didn't feel anything like floating; his feet still felt like standing on solid ground. Lifting his left foot a little so he could knock the tip of his shoe against whatever he was standing on, the hedgehog found there actually had to be something solid beneath him… you just couldn't _see_ anything there.

Sonic shook his head. "Freaky… but kinda cool."

The elevator reached the upper floor and Sonic hopped out of it, shooting it another strange glance before walking off. From up here the floor he stood on was semi-transparent, a pale yellowish plane of… something. Energy maybe. A force field like the paths in Grand Metropolis? Or just some fancy glass? Sonic shrugged. It didn't actually matter, did it?

What mattered more was where he'd landed here. The weird elevators, entire floors made of some kind of stuff he'd never seen before, stuff for selling he'd also never seen before, let alone had any idea what it actually was…

"Is this the future?", he mumbled, leaning over the railing framing the upper floor and looking down on the maze he'd walked through before. After all, they'd landed in the past two times before. Travelling to the future wasn't any more unrealistic if you thought about it… but to be fair, Sonic had lived through such an amount of unbelievable things he was tempted to believe everything. Why not the future? The idea was kind of cool, actually.

Sonic grinned to himself. So, if this was the future then… How far in the future? A hundred years from their time? A thousand? Would people know him and Knuckles? A part of Sonic wished so, wanted to be remembered for what he'd done. You'd think that defeating mad scientists and saving the planet from destruction a couple times should score you an entry in history books, right?

Yet, another part of Sonic almost thought it would be easier if nobody recognized them. The chances for some bad space-time screw-up or whatever could happen from their being here were smaller if they could just walk around without being recognized as the awesome heroes from the past they were, right? So far, no-one had taken notice of the blue hedgehog strolling pretty disorientated through this large mall, and probably it was easier that way.

Sonic shook off his thoughts for now, concentrating on watching all the Mobians below. Like ants, he thought, a smile flashing on his face. From above the directions chosen by the single persons looked random and the idea occurred to Sonic that no matter how lost he was, he wouldn't really stick out in this crowd. From above they all seemed lost on where they were going. The hedgehog chuckled.

Yet, there was no trace of Knuckles. Sonic had hoped his friend's crimson fur would be somewhat of an eye catcher, but the mall below was a chaos crawling with colours and _nothing_ stuck out. He sighed and turned away, wondering if they had anything like an information terminal that could make a call-out for him. Parents had to find their little kids that got lost at this messy place someway, didn't they?

The blue hedgehog was still considering a good and entertaining way to call out for Knuckles when he walked back to the elevator, hoping it would also work in the other direction, when he bumped into someone. Apologizing, he was already half past the person when a hand grabbed his arm and held him back.

"Hey kid, shouldn't you be in school?"

Sonic turned back around, his eyes wandering from the hand still holding around his arm to the face of the person it belonged to. He was a rabbit, the small space on his head between his long, hanging ears topped with a dark blue cap, the front of it adorned with a silver star in a circle. He was dressed in an equally blue vest and a belt around his hips holding some kind of pistol. A small lettering on the chest assigned him as a policeman.

"Uh… There's a free day today," Sonic hurriedly said. As long as he had no ideas how long people had to go to school in this time, saying he didn't go to any school maybe wasn't a good idea.

"So? What educational institute do you go to?", the rabbit officer asked, but let go of Sonic.

"Oh… uh…" The blue hedgehog tried to think of some quick excuse, but before he could come up with anything, a female cat in the same uniform as the rabbit joined his side, a smug smile on her anyways rather beautiful face.

"May we see your ID?"

"Umm… Sorry, I gotta juice! See ya!" Deciding he didn't want this to go the way his little head to head with GUN had gone a while back, Sonic span on his heels and broke into a sprint, dodging around stands, shelves and gawking Mobians.

It took the two policemen about three seconds until they realized what was going on. "Hey! Come back here!"

Glancing quickly over his shoulder, Sonic grinned at the side of the duo running after him. Him. Sonic the freaking Hedgehog aka fastest thing on two legs. What a joke.

"Stop immediately! This is the last warning!", the cat shouted.

Sonic chuckled, bracing himself to jump over a small stand selling… some sort of round objects. The moment he leapt, his ears caught a sizzling sound, a little too much resembling the sound a laser shot made going through the air, then something hit his back and his whole body went limp as a feeling like being dunked into a bucket of icy water poured through him. Unable to move and prevent it, his momentum smashed him into the stand, causing it to collapse under the impulse and a vast amount of odd round things for unknown purposes came toppling down on him.

"Ngh!" Sonic tried to struggle to free himself from the wreckage, but his body was a frozen piece of hedgehog popsicle and wouldn't respond.

However, the two police officers had finally caught up with him and now shoved off the stuff that had buried him. "I'm sorry that was necessary," the rabbit apologized and, although angry and actually somewhat afraid of what they'd done to him so easily, Sonic found he sounded somewhat sincere.

"What did you do to me?!", he snapped when he was turned to his back and the rabbit started to search him for… whatever.

The purple cat waved the pistol she was still holding, her face still or yet again wearing that smug smile. "It's called a paralyzer, kid. Very helpful for catching people. How do you like it?"

Sonic decided not to dignify her with an answer, but she didn't appear to be expecting one, anyway.

"I can't find his ID," her colleague announced. He looked down on Sonic again. "Would you give us your name?"

Sonic shook his head. He was clear on that one, mindful of keeping himself from screwing time and space up before they found the way home, and so far the two police officers didn't really classify as new good friends or allies to enlist as help to get home.

"Stubborn, aren't we?", the cat teased, putting her weapon back into the holster on her belt. Sonic felt tempted to stick out his tongue.

The rabbit's look however was still rather soft. "You'll have to come with us to the station. That's what we do with every runaway kid. Resistance is useless. Sorry."

Sonic's body was filling with a very uncomfortable sensation of pins and needles, but at least it was taking the cold away. He still couldn't move and he failed to keep his nervousness about it from his voice in spite of the sarcasm he managed to put into his tone. "I'm really sorry, you'll have to go on this funny trip alone 'cause you freaking paralyzed me!"

"You'll be able to move in a minute again," the rabbit told him. "Don't worry."

Sonic snorted.

The officer just glanced down on him for another moment. "You know, you're quite the runner. You almost escaped us."

"You cheated," the blue hedgehog snapped.

"Nah, no hard feelings, kid." Somehow Sonic thought the rabbit was actually trying to cheer him up. "By the way, have you ever heard of Sonic the Hedgehog? Centuries ago, he and his friends saved our planet from a criminal numerous times. He was also a blue hedgehog that could run fast. Isn't that kinda cool?" The policeman winked at Sonic.

So they did remember him… A warm feeling spread in Sonic's chest. Pride? Happiness at being appreciated? A bit of both, probably.

The hedgehog grinned. "Yeah…" For a short moment, he actually forgot he was a prisoner of some future police with evil paralysing weapons.

* * *

"Alright, kid, get in there." The policeman gestured at the door of a – compared to the rest of the city – rather boring looking house. When Sonic didn't actually comply, he grabbed the blue hedgehog by the shoulders and shoved him in. "I told you resistance is useless, kid."

"Stop calling me 'kid'," Sonic complained while being pushed through a blank, grey-walled corridor and through another door into what looked like a mixture of an office and one of Eggman's command centers. A table looking as if it consisted entirely of a greenish glass sat in the middle of it and behind it sat another uniformed Mobian, a green fox or dog. The wall behind him was covered entirely in half-transparent screens or holograms, or something in between, showing what looked like full streets and public places.

The green-furred policeman ridged an eyebrow. "Who's that?", he addressed his colleagues.

"Caught him strolling around the mall," the cat answered readily. "No ID, doesn't want to say his name."

"Kid should be in school," her partner took over. "Take his fingerprints and keep him here until his parents are found and can bring him back to the educational institution he escaped from."

 _Escaped_. Sonic frowned. Sounded more like a prison than a school…

"Alright, kid, take off your glove and place your hand on this surface," the fox-dog ordered.

In reply, Sonic crossed his arms on his chest. "You're violating my Mobian Rights," he said stubbornly.

The three police officers exchanged glances. "His what?", the female cat wondered.

"I guess that was some old-fashioned nonsense they had something like two centuries ago," the green fox answered. "I wonder why they even keep teaching our young this history crap. They're just getting stupid ideas…"

The rabbit officer waved his weapon under Sonic's nose. "Really kid, don't make me use this. At the moment you're arrested as a runaway kid. If you keep talking like that, we'll have to report you and then you got public intelligence on your heels, and I tell you they're not going to sponsor your next birthday party. Just be a smart boy and behave."

To his amusement Sonic found the guy was actually trying to be considerate. Oh well, maybe if he complied the two would go back to their work and leave him alone with this green guy, who, as the hedgehog had already found out didn't hold one of the spooky paralyzers and looking at his round belly certainly wasn't a match for him. So, get rid of the others first.

Making a face and only half feigning it, he pulled off his right glove. "Okay, okay…"

"Atta boy," the cat smiled as Sonic laid his hand on the indicated space in one corner of the glass table.

A bright glow came from the presumed glass around his hand, pulsing a few times and then, without any visible connection or anything the policemen had to do, a part of the holoscreen showed a scan of Sonic's palm and fingers.

"That's actually kinda cool," the blue hedgehog commented, taking his glove back on.

"We're not here to entertain you," the green fox grumbled. "You'll have to wait in a cell until the data base confirmed your identity and you can be transported back to your educational institution."

Sonic grinned inwardly. _You can wait until the chao come home for that_ , he thought.

Standing up from behind his desk, the green-furred policeman picked up something that looked like the remote control for a stylish TV to Sonic and waved at his two colleagues to follow him. Taking Sonic's arm to make sure he 'was a smart boy and behaved', the rabbit and cat followed him out of the office, down the rest of the boringly furnished corridor to a thick door. Pulling it open, the fox let the three others walk inside.

Sonic looked around in utter surprise. Had he expected something like iron bars, he'd been pretty wrong. They stood in a room that was about five by twenty meters large. To his left, a slightly glowing, but transparent barrier separated a kind of corridor down to the far end of the room from the rest of it. Mentioned rest that also was divided in smaller sections of about two by three meters by more of the glowing walls.

"Whoa, force fields…" Sonic nodded to himself at the reminder of some of Eggman's infamous creations. Well, it was better than bars in GUN's prison, maybe?

His eyes roamed the room and the odd interpretation of prisons they had at this place while he was shoved down the corridor. It was then that he noticed he was not the only prisoner. In the last cell a single person sat in a corner, his fur a bright shade of red, long spines hanging down from his head, one arm resting in a brightly white sling around his neck, the other, large hand fisted on the floor next to him, looking up at Sonic and the policemen with a distinct one-word-and-I'm-gonna-kill-you expression on his face. Sonic bit down on a grin.

Stopping in front of the force field section next to the one Knuckles was locked in, the green fox pushed a button on the TV remote and the glowing wall between their position and the next free cell shut down. A mock look manifested in the officer's face as he waved for Sonic to walk in. "Sir."

Sonic shrugged, stepping into the blank room and sharply watching the policefox pressing another button to reactivate the cell's force field. "Y'know, you could at least put a sofa or something in here."

The cat laughed. "We'll suggest it," she said in a tone that made clear she wouldn't.

"Hey," Sonic called after the three of them when they walked out.

"What? Starting to regret it already, kid?" The rabbit frowned.

"Nah," Sonic shook his head. "I'm gonna hang here for a while, that's okay. I was just wondering if we can order some lunch. I'm really, really hungry."

In response, the door to the prison room was slammed.

Sonic grinned. "I guess that means no snacks then."

* * *

To be honest, Tails felt a little uneasy walking through the streets of Station Square. This part of the city was, at least during daylight times, almost empty of people. After the sun went down that surely was a completely different matter. Night Babylon was cramped with casinos, bars and night clubs that surely were buzzing with activity at times other places where fast asleep. Now, in bright daylight, the neon signs looked almost misplaced.

Tails slowly walked up to the entrance of Club Rouge, a bar owned by the GUN agent and treasure huntress Rouge the Bat. Just like everything else around, the doors and windows were closed and no-one was to be seen.

Hesitantly Tails reached to knock on the door in lack of a bell to ring. Shifting his weight between his feet and twirling his tails, the fox waited for something to happen. When nothing did, he knocked again, a little harder this time.

Apparently he had finally been noticed, the clangs of high-heels on polished floor could be heard approaching the door before it opened to reveal the club's boss. Dressed in her familiar jumpsuit, flawless make-up and a good deal of heavy, cough-inducing perfume, Rouge raised a brow at the sight of Tails.

"What a surprise. If this isn't the smart little fox boy." She smiled smugly. "You know the club's closed, don't you?"

Tails smiled nervously. "Yeah, of course. Do I look as if I came for that?"

Rouge giggled, looking a lot friendlier all of a sudden. "Point number one for you, cutie. My club offers exquisite music and drinks. I don't think you're in for that. So, what brings a little nerd here?"

"I was looking for Shadow," Tails said, deciding to take the direct approach. "And I was hoping you knew where he is."

Rouge tilted her head. "Consider this your lucky day, kid. While he visits not sparely, he's not exactly regular with things like that. He's behind the house, with Omega keeping him company. You can go in and try your luck, but I'm warning you. He's not in the best mood. Boys and their toys, you know the deal." She shrugged.

Tails stared at her. He totally didn't know what deal she was going on about, but he followed her lead when she gestured him inside, hoping that Shadow wouldn't chuck any Chaos Spears at him.


	13. Sonic Breakout

With the police gone, Sonic turned around to greet his cell neighbor with a properly cliché line. "Hey there, Knux. Long time no see." He grinned at the glare he received in return and continued as if it wasn't directed at him. "Y'know, I was wondering how I'd find you in this city."

"Oh really? And what gave you the idea you'd find me _here_?" Knuckles still looked pretty pissed, but a mock smirk made it to his face.

"Uh, I guess it was good luck." Sonic shrugged, grinning sheepishly.

The red echidna frowned. "You're the only idiot I know calling being put in jail 'good luck'."

"Heh… A guy has to stay optimistic, right?"

"That's _your_ job, hedgehog." Knuckles was still frowning. "How'd you even get here?"

"I was dumb enough to run into two police guys," Sonic openly admitted. "Asked for some ID thing, and when I didn't have it they arrested me. Think I'm some kid that ran away from school."

Knuckles choked on a laugh. "A runaway kid? You? That's the best story I heard all day…"

"Oh, really?" Sonic grimaced, though he had to admit he felt a little embarrassed about it. His echidna friend quickly stopped laughing again at seeing the hedgehog's death glare and a moment of silence followed. "Knux?", Sonic broke it after ten seconds or something.

"Yeah?"

"Do I really look that young?"

The look in Knuckles' face told Sonic the echidna was fighting back another laugh. "Uh, dunno?"

"Uh-hu…" Sonic frowned, not overly satisfied with that answer. "By the way, what heinous crime are they accusing you of?"

"Illegal teleportation," Knuckles replied.

"Illegal teleportation," Sonic echoed. "How'd you get that indictment?"

"Simple. The stupid Chaos time travel whatsoever dropped me in the middle of a crowd."

"And randomly appearing somewhere is not allowed around here," Sonic concluded.

Knuckles tilted his head. "Apparently not. The police seemed very unhappy about it, at least. Zapped me with some kind of glowy weapon thing. I was happy I could move again when I was put in here."

"Ouch." Sonic pulled a face. "They call these things paralyzers. I got to enjoy one of them as well, although it lasted for just a minute."

Knuckles grinned faintly. "I guess that's the upside of looking like a kid instead of some evil illegal teleporter guy."

Sonic laughed. "If you look at it that way…"

Knuckles moved to stand up. "So, now that we've finished our happy little reunion in this high-tech prison, can we probably work out how we get outta here again?"

"Do you think we can get past these force fields?" Sonic wandered along his own cell's walls, then stopped to press against them.

"I'm afraid not," Knuckles noticed, watching his attempts. "I tried punching them. They just bounce back."

"Hm. Let me try something…" Sonic got down to the floor and started spinballing on the spot, then when he'd gathered up enough speed he dashed forwards. The contact with the field just a second later caused a short, prickling sensation running from the tips of his quills to his skin, then he bounced off, his momentum enough to hit another wall and for a few seconds he ricocheted between the cell's walls before stopping his motion.

"Well, while it actually is kinda fun, I'm afraid it doesn't get us anywhere…", he mused, thoughtfully regarding the walls.

"My saying, you could have just listened to me, just for once, you know," Knuckled commented. "Any bright ideas?"

"We need a strategy. Or a plan. Or both." Sonic audibly snapped his fingers at his friend, less than a meter away and yet unreachable.

Knuckles looked resigned rather than enthusiastic. "Great, Sonic. What does that plan look like?"

"Let's think about it." Sonic started walking around his cell. "Technically, after the two guys that brought me in are gone again, we're two against one, but we can't really help each other. Plus, the guy got the weapons, and we're locked in."

The red echidna blinked slowly, watching Sonic as if he was trying to figure out just how retarded the hedgehog was. "Yeah…?"

"We need to surprise our guard," Sonic continued. "We need to do something he doesn't expect."

"You could start singing 'I am the Eggman'." Knuckles made a face.

"Your negativity is not helping," Sonic complained. "Have you seen this remote thing that opens the force fields?"

"Yes, of course." The echidna nodded. "I doubt the guy will bring it in here for us to shut down the walls."

"Maybe not, but getting the guy _and_ the remote in here would probably help us." Sonic's ears twitched. "If we can get him in one of our cells, we could snatch the remote, lock him in and run for it."

Knuckles tipped his head aside, contemplating Sonic's idea with a doubtful look on his face. "I like Tails' plans better."

Sonic stuck out his tongue at him, folding his arms. "Oh yeah? Do you have any better ideas, smart-ass?"

"I didn't say that." Knuckles cocked an eyebrow. "It could even work… Just how do we get him in here without expecting what we're up to?"

"Well, first of all he doesn't even know we know each other, so us plotting a jailbreak together isn't really expected anyway," Sonic pointed out.

"Maybe not, but if we want to set up a trap it has to be something unsuspicious," the guardian added.

"Yeah, right…"

Silence fell once more. Sonic racked his brains for something plausible that would get the prison guard in here _with_ remote and _without_ weapon. The fact the room was absolutely empty didn't make it easier… There was nothing they could use to help them. Usually, Sonic's plans were made on the impulse, based on improvising and his innate speed. Running fast wouldn't actually help him much here… Right now the hedgehog wondered how Tails came up with these numerous plans with tons of details. He shook his head. All this thinking made his head feel like his brain was just gonna explode and leave him to die here.

 _Die…?_ "I got an idea!", he exclaimed, smiling at Knuckles.

His red friend actually looked kind of hopeful at the announcement. "Really?"

"We die."

"What!?" Knuckles stared at him in disbelief, and a look that made clear he was severely doubting the hedgehog's sanity right now.

"We die," Sonic repeated, unfazed by the guardian's lack of amazement. "Or one of us, that's better I think, then the other one can scream for help."

"Isn't that… a little _unrealistic_?" Knuckles shook his head, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Why would we, or one of us, _die_ all of a sudden?"

"Well, maybe not die then, faint would also do it I guess," Sonic mused aloud. "Someone lying around on the floor unmoving doesn't look very suspicious or dangerous, right?"

"Then that's your job. You seem to be the less evil looking one of us anyway," the echidna mocked him.

"Fine with me," Sonic skipped on the teasing. "Okay, I just faint and lie here. Then you start shouting for help. The police guy comes to see what all your screaming is about, sees me and shuts down the force field to look what's wrong with me. When he tries to check up on me, I jump him and snatch the remote. Tada, we're free."

"That plan's idiotic," Knuckles groaned, "but I don't know anything else and it's not that I would get other sorts of entertainment here. We'll try that. So, all I have to do is shout, right?"

"And talk to him," Sonic added. "Distract him, chatter like a waterfall. This needs both of our acting skills. I play corpse, and you have to seem worried about me suddenly collapsing here."

"Why does your part seem so much easier than mine?", Knuckles mused.

"You said it'd be my job," Sonic reminded his friend.

"Oh, right…" The red echidna pointed at the floor. "Then go ahead and die on me already."

Sonic grinned. "Right away." He grabbed his head with both hands, tumbling around in his cell. "Oh, I suddenly feel soooooo bad." He let himself drop to the floor, eyes closed. "Okay, do I look dead enough?", he asked without moving.

"If you stop grinning, you moron, yeah," Knuckles commented. According to their brilliant plan, the echidna started shouting then. "Hey! Help! Somebody come and help us! We need a doctor! Hey! That guy's dying or something! Help!"

It took about twenty seconds of Knuckles shouting and a lot of Sonic's self-control to keep himself from bursting out laughing there on the floor until the door opened.

"What's up with that noise? Just be quiet!", the voice of the green fox demanded.

"Come here and look at this blue guy there! I swear he's dead or something, man!", Knuckles continued and Sonic found the echidna didn't do such a bad job sounding surprised and worried.

Quick footsteps were heard, stopping in front of Sonic's cell. "What happened?!" Also the policeman sounded concerned now. Opening one eye the smallest slit, Sonic caught a glimpse of him shutting down the cell's front wall and hurrying to Sonic's side.

"I don't know, he suddenly said he was feeling, um, unwell and then he just collapsed there!", Knuckles kept babbling. "Maybe he's ill or something. Or he really was hungry and now he starved in here! That'd be murder! The police killed that guy! You should have brought him some food!"

By now the green fox had reached Sonic's side and was trying to feel his pulse. "Calm down already, he's not dead. Seems like he passed out, though." Sonic's cheeks were patted. "Hey, kid, can you hear me?"

Sonic didn't move a muscle.

"Told ya, he's dying," Knuckles insisted, deadpan in his voice.

The policeman stood up. "Keep an eye on him, I'll call an ambulance," he said, turning around to hurry out of the room.

Sonic was on his feet faster than anyone could have watched. In less than a second he was at the policeman's side, pulled the remote control from his grasp, grabbed the fox' arm, rushed back into the open cell, dropped his not unheavy load, ran back out and pressed the button that read the number corresponding to the cell. A halleluja to good labels. The transparent glow returned immediately and through the force field the officer stared at the blue hedgehog, totally dumbfounded.

"Sorry, it's nothing personal," Sonic said, grinning at him.

"You… you tricked me!", the fox fumed. "Let me out; this is obstruction of justice!"

"Oh, stop screaming and sit tight." Sonic laughed, glad to have switched positions.

The officer stomped over to Sonic until just the force field was keeping him from reaching the blue hedgehog. "Open the cell immediately, or else…"

Sonic looked down on the remote. "Open the cell? Uh, okay. If that's your wish." He pressed another button, causing Knuckles' cell to shut down.

Nodding contently, the echidna walked out to stand next to him. "Was about time. I was starting to worry you'd leave me there."

"How could I leave someone who's such a great actor to rot in this boring room?" Sonic chuckled.

"You were not so bad yourself; I was sure you'd spoil it all by laughing your ass off or something." Knuckles grinned, playfully nudging Sonic's side with his elbow.

"See? I didn't. Wanna complain about my plans again? Eh? Eh!?" Sonic gave Knuckles a friendly push towards the door.

"Maybe later." Knuckles grinned.

"Aw, come on. Here, gimme five!" Sonic held out his hand to the echidna, who awkwardly looked at Sonic's palm for a moment before actually slapping it.

Now the officer was entirely furious. Sonic almost felt sorry for him. "You… you… This is a conspiracy! A plot! A put-up affair!"

"Great that you got it figured," Knuckles mockingly lauded him. "A smart guy, isn't he?"

"A _genius_ ," Sonic nodded, walking towards the exit. "Come on, we're outta here."

"I'm right behind you," Knuckles said, and the notion of how familiar and good that sounded swept over Sonic for a second.

Reaching the door, the blue hedgehog turned around again, looked at the police officer, at the remote, at the officer again and shrugged. "Well, I guess you can keep this thing." In turning around, he tossed the device over his shoulder, not looking back when it made an unhealthy noise upon hitting the floor and rebouncing a few times.

* * *

Centimeter by centimeter the scientist was inspecting the round outlet, searching for any possible, tiny bump in the mirroring metal. The couple thousand degrees continuously shooting through this cannon later would put an immense stress on the material, and what now looked like barely visible dents or bumps would probably lead to a fatal malfunction once the laser was in use.

But even Robotnik's strict eye didn't meet a flaw in the construction. The cannon's muzzle was a masterpiece already now.

Smiling a small smile of satisfaction, the human crawled out of his weapon again, slowly walking alongside the long, about a meter thick barrel, his left hand feeling over the polished surface. He nodded to himself. Really nice.

With a swift movement of his arm, Robotnik swung open the casing of the laser unit sitting behind the barrel. It was, in whole, about the size of his floating Eggmobile. What made it considerably smaller than the units that had powered previous large laser weapons he'd used. Still, unlike those weapons, it wasn't a weapon for extreme distances. It didn't need to be efficient over the distance of the entire atmosphere. It would have a range of a couple kilometers maximum. That was the best range you could achieve for a ground-bound weapon.

Again handling the flashlight, Robotnik looked over the various parts of the laser unit, the large tesla coils, the high voltage amplifiers, the chamber holding the gas. This laser cannon was, in a way, also a new invention. The new unit it used wouldn't only emit a monochromatic light as was typical for lasers; instead it combined several wavelengths of lasers into one giant beam with the intensity and power of white light. A certainly devastating weapon…

Robotnik closed the hatch again and stepped down from the cannon. It was time to set out and start first test runs. Robotnik had selected the icy plains of Holoska for the first cannon tests, it was remote and had nice cooling for the not yet fine-tuned laser.

An hour later, the scientist was flying a transport aircraft towards the north, unconcerned about leaving his base to itself. He had robot partols and security systems for taking care of any intruders if someone happened to try making it into his hideout... right?

* * *

"You goddamned _*beep*_ piece of _*beepbeep*_ crap!"

Tails froze in the doorway that led on a paved square behind Rouge's large house, staring at the scene in front of him.

"Start working or I will make sure you never work again…" The hard kick dealt to the side of the motorcycle by a foot in a hoverskate caused the bike to fall over and crash on the ground with a loud noise. "If you don't I will just chaos –" The black and red striped hedgehog-hybrid had raised a fist, threateningly towering over the unfortunate piece of machinery.

"MY INTERNAL CALCULATIONS YIELD THE USAGE OF CHAOS SPEARS ON THIS DEVICE'S CASING WILL NOT IMPROVE ITS OPERATION," a big, bulky robot put in from a few meters left of Shadow, the red optics fixed on the mutilated motorcycle, and somehow Tails felt like the snarling, metallic voice still carried a touch of sarcasm, although the fox wasn't sure if or how the E-series robot possessed something like a sense of humor.

Shadow's red eyes flew up to fix on Omega. "So? Do you have any smart idea what will do?"

"STORED DATA DOES NOT CONTAIN INFORMATION ON MAINTAINANCE OF TWO-WHEELED MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION," the red robot denied, unfazed by the less than friendly tone in the black hedgehog's voice.

From behind Tails, Rouge cleared her throat. "Boys!"

Shadow turned around, a glare locking on the white bat and their uninvited guest. "What?!"

Omega had also turned to Rouge and Tails. "THE RAISED BLOOD PRESSURE OF PROJECT SHADOW INDICATES A STRESSED EMOTIONAL CONDITION. SUDDEN HOSTILE ACTIONS ARE NOT UNLIKELY IN BIOLOGICAL UNITS UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES LIKE THIS."

"If the _stressed-out biological unit_ ," Rouge giggled a little, "doesn't want to lose his chances to always come to my place whenever he should feel like it, he better doesn't chaos toast me. And if Mister Ultimate Lifeform feels like toasting _his_ bike on _my_ backyard, he better makes sure the wreckage isn't left lying around."

Tails turned over his shoulder to stare at the bat in open surprise; he'd never seen the flirty spy and treasure huntress, always calm, controlled and with a displayed, mocking superiority in her voice and attitude, talk to anyone like _that_. The simple fact someone talked to _Shadow_ that way was enough to surprise Tails…

Still, the treatment seemed somewhat successful as Shadow grumbled, folding his arms and shooting first Rouge and then his bike a disapproving glare, but at least he didn't look ready to wreck havoc on the bat's house and its surroundings anymore. "What do you even _want_?"

Not seeming impressed at all by his attitude, Rouge pointed at Tails, a smug smile on her face. "Cutie here wants to talk to you."

Tails tried a smile at Shadow, timidly stepping a little closer.

Red eyes briefly wandered up and down the young fox and the black hedgehog cocked a brow. "Tell that faker to come himself if he wants something."

"He can't," Tails replied. "What is somehow the reason I'm even here…"

Shadow remained silent, but his ears twitched briefly, what was a sign he'd caught his interest, well, at least as far as Tails' knowledge on hedgehog anatomy and body language gathered in his years with Sonic went, and of course applying in spite of having been artificially created from Black Arms DNA and hedgehog genes Shadow's body language at least resembled his blue friend's.

"So?", Shadow finally spoke up. "What did that blue idiot get himself into this time?"

"It wasn't his fault," Tails defended his elder brother, distractedly noticing Rouge walking around him to watch him with a hint of curiosity. "We were at Eggman's base. Sonic, Knuckles and me. We knew Eggman had his hands on a Chaos Emerald and was planning some kind of experiment with it. We didn't know any details, but we thought it might be better not to let Eggman do whatever he was up to. So, we sneaked into his base. I left the others when we found a computer terminal; I hoped I could probably find some details on Eggman's newest invention that could be of use to us. Sonic and Knuckles went on without me, trying to find Eggman.

"I found out that his experiment was to use the Chaos Emerald to create a wormhole he could use as a weapon. Then I don't really know what happened, suddenly there were alarms and some kind of explosion, the generators, flux fields and chaos modulators in the room just blew up… when it was over Sonic and Knuckles were gone. I searched for them, but I couldn't find anything."

"So what? Maybe they just blew up with Eggman's experiment." Shadow snorted.

Tails shook his head. "No, they didn't. I asked a friend of mine for help and we build a chaos field detector that allowed us to find abnormalities in chaos radiations caused by the explosion of Eggman's wormhole generator. As it seems, Sonic and Knuckles absorbed some of this radiation. That way we tried locating them. We had to consider the uncertainty principle of course, so we weren't able to pinpoint anything exactly. But we do know that the radiation that was created in Eggman's experiment caused effects we've never seen before. It combined the Chaos Emerald's power for teleportation and time manipulations and –"

"Pretend I don't understand one bit of your nerd talk, cutie…" Rouge rolled her eyes.

"I get him. Go on, fox." Shadow nodded at Tails.

It was the first sign of not complete rejection he got out of the enigmatic hedgehog, so Tails eagerly continued. "Due to the fact Sonic and Knuckles interact sensitively with chaos energy anyway, their bodies absorbed a good deal of this unknown radiation. As a result of the explosion, the radiations intensity fluctuates periodically, like the changing fields in an oscillator circuit."

"Just what happened to them?", Rouge interrupted.

"The explosion combined with the power of the Chaos Emerald that caused it in the first place upset the balance of space-time. The Chaos Emeralds, Master Emerald, gold rings and these things are all part of… a hypershape. You can think of it like the fifth dimension in our universe. There are the three spatial dimensions, the fourth is time, and then there are the chaos objects. Due to being hyperspace objects they are able to just… ignore certain laws of nature." Tails turned to Shadow. "It's what you can do when using Chaos Control. You're able to slow down time or beam yourself to another position by using hyperspace energies. The radiation Sonic and Knuckles were exposed to works in similar ways. It… detached them from normal space-time."

Shadow blinked silently and Rouge stared at Tails. "You mean, they're now… somewhere in this hyperspace thing?"

Tails shook his head. "If they were, I couldn't locate them at all anymore, but I can. Sometimes, at least. Our calculations imply that the energy unleashed during the blast was not enough to completely tear their atoms out of the spatial dimensions they're normally existing in. The radiation created a chaos field that _consists_ of them… and a great deal of free chaos energy. I don't think they're aware of it or can do anything with it, as it's not chaos energy like we're used to handle."

"What is happening then?" Shadow's ears were perked now, something about Tails' report had clearly sparked his interest.

"Basically, leaving the scientific details out –"

"I beg of you…" Rouge groaned.

Tails smirked a little. "Basically, this field is like Chaos Control… But it's not just a teleport, it got a temporal component. Our theory is that everytime a new peak is reached in the field's oscillating intensity, it chaos controls them…. through space, and through time."

"So, that faker and the knucklehead are doing time travels?" Shadow stifled a chuckle.

"Yes, but they can't control it." Tails nodded.

"I see how it's a problem for you they're lost in time, but what do you want from _me_?" Shadow shot Tails a stern look. "I don't think the world would be a much worse place without that blue idiot getting on my nerves…"

Tails drew a deep breath, feeling his eyebrow narrow. "It's not about you and what you think! It isn't about me and that I want them back either! Do you have any idea what time travels do to the universe?! Ever heard of paradoxes?! I don't know where they are now, but the mere fact that they _are_ there now might greatly influence... _everything_! Imagine what happens in case they prevent you from being created, Shadow! Just on accident, by running into someone random!"

Shadow stared at Tails, clearly surprised by the outburst. "They can screw something up?"

" _Screw something up?!_ We don't know if time is linear or not for sure. If it has linear components and through some unfortunate accidents they create a paradox, this could _screw_ _up_ the entire universe!" Tails gestured wildly.

Taking a step back to avoid being hit by the little fox, Shadow eyed him. "You're serious," he noticed, a grim look appearing on his face. "So like that faker to destroy the universe on a joyride…"

For a moment Tails felt tempted to jump at Shadow's throat, disregarding the fact the black hedgehog would clearly have the upper hand. "I doubt it'll be anything like a joyride," he hissed instead, glaring at Shadow as sharply as he could.

Not seeming really impressed, the Black Arm hybrid crossed his arms again. "So, what do you want from me?", he repeated his question of earlier.

Taking another slow breath to calm himself, Tails looked him up and down. "I can get them back. I can build a machine that does that… but I need the Chaos Emerald Eggman used. Another one won't do it; each of them got its own frequency patterns. I need the one in Eggman's base."

Rouge nodded. "I see. You're the brain of your little party, jobs like blowing up Eggman's robots is left to Knuckles and Sonic, right? And because you think you're not up to going into the lion's den all on your own, you came to ask _us_ for help," she concluded, a smug smile wrinkling her lips.

Tails nodded silently.

"Fine." A tiny smirk had made it onto Shadow's stoic face. "And what do we get out of helping you rescue your lost team?"

"How does 'save the universe from collapsing' sound?" Tails looked between the bat, hedgehog and their sentient robot that was watching the conversation silently.

Rouge pretended to study her fingers even through her gloves. "Nah. How about something a little more rewarding…?"

Tails blinked. He knew they'd want a reward; he'd spent the way here trying to think of something. In vain… His look fell on the fallen motorcycle and he pointed. "I'll repair it for you," he offered.

Shadow quirked an eyeridge, but didn't comment.

"Okay," Tails nodded, looking back at the dark hedgehog. "I'll repair it and you get a tuning, too. I'll make it as fast as I can. How about an inbuilt ring magnet to refill the energy tanks while you're still going?"

Shadow tilted his head. "Hmpf. I'm not sure if this is worth helping out that blue hedgehog…"

Tails sighed. "Fine. You know what? Sonic would never hesitate to help you if you need help, no matter if the way you treat others makes you worth helping out."

The black and red hedgehog winced a little, glaring at Tails. "And?"

Tails fought the smile that wanted to slip onto his face. He could do this. "Sonic helped you before. He just could do it and so he did. He didn't ask for any rewards."

Shadow's eyebrows went up. "You're implying?"

"I'm _implying_ you owe him. It's fair." Tails folded his arms, mimicking the dark hedgehog before him. "You sit here and do your own thing, and don't care if someone actually needs help. That's... _ignorant_."

"It is not very nice of you to say it like that, foxy," Rouge insisted, but the twinkle in her turquoise eyes told she was at least a little impressed.

"It is not very nice of you to say Sonic's not worth helping out either," the fox gave back stubbornly. He'd come here to get them to work with him, and he wasn't going to disappoint Sonic. He needed him now. He was going to prove he could do this.

Surprisingly, even Shadow chuckled under his breath. "Fine. If I help you, we're even. I'll never hear of this whole 'Sonic helped you, too' thing again."

"Of course not." Tails nodded seriously. He could live with that, no problem. "So, do we have a deal? You'll help me get that Chaos Emerald and I'll repair your bike _and_ forget this whole 'Sonic helped you' thing ever happened?"

Shadow looked at him and Tails felt like bursting from the inside while waiting for him to speak. One or two seconds passed like syrup, then the black hedgehog nodded. "We got a deal. _Tails_." And with that, Shadow turned around and disappeared in the house.

Tails sighed and finally allowed himself his smile. He couldn't believe it. He'd won.

"Congratulations, cutie." Rouge patted his shoulder. "I wasn't sure if you could do it. Still… what do _I_ get out of this?" She blinked her eyes at him, hoping to get some kind of reward to herself.

Tails grinned, suddenly feeling at ease as he pointed after Shadow and then at the broken motorcycle. "Peace at you house restored; _and_ you can spare the money for renovations after Shadow chaos blasted his bike, and your house with it just because it happened to stand nearby," he said simply.

Rouge stared and almost looked a little embarrassed. "You got me, foxy."

Tails preferred not to comment on it. The gentleman enjoys silently.

* * *

Beginning nightfall had turned the sky into a greyish dark blue coat spanned over the huge future city. Down on the streets you could see little change to the day though, thousands of neon lights, giant screens and shiny holograms illuminating even the most hidden corners of the tall skyscrapers. To their feet, a red echidna and a blue hedgehog were slowly and still aimlessly walking along the streets trying to melt into the crowds at their best.

Sonic had expected the streets would empty over time, but apparently it was still early evening in terms of this humming metropolis. The hedgehog threw a side-glance at his companion. Knuckles was looking up towards the top of the buildings next to them as if their way out of here would just fly around somewhere up there, his good hand again supporting the bad in its sling. Sonic frowned. He knew it hurt, and he knew Knuckles had slept anything but good the past night. He also knew that he himself was still starving, and although the echidna kept quiet about it he couldn't imagine he wasn't hungry.

"Any ideas on where we're gonna camp tonight?", Sonic asked into the silence between them, kicking an empty coke can across the pavement, causing it to bounce and give out scrambled noises.

"Nope. It doesn't look as if we could pay for a hotel room really, does it?" Knuckles looked back down to Sonic and the hedgehog was stricken with an odd sense of how lost Knuckles looked. Not that he never looked lost for something, in fact, he looked lost quite often when outside Angel Island, but Sonic had never found it so little amusing. He wasn't sure if Knuckles noticed Sonic didn't tease him as he was used to normally.

"Not really, no," the hedgehog replied. "I have no idea if money still exists. Maybe they got rid of it or something."

"I wouldn't be so surprised." Knuckles nodded towards the 'gears with sticks' rushing past them. "There's a lot of crazy stuff in this place…"

Sonic inclined his head. "You should have seen the elevators at the mall! The things really were crazy… But cool, too. I'm sure if we had one of those you could use it to go all the way up to Angel Island!" Knuckles' face darkened at the mentioning of his home and Sonic flinched. _Way to go, Sonic_ , he scolded himself, _so much about cheering Knux up_ …

A moment passed in silence, Knuckles looking down on his feet as he walked and Sonic trying to find some smart words to start over. He didn't get there however as his eyes roaming the seemingly endless street before them took sight of blinking blue lights. At the base of the next large house, a long row of the gear-like vehicles had been parked, in front of them two uniformed guys had positioned their own boards that gave out the rhythmic blue light.

Gripping Knuckles' arm, Sonic pulled him aside, pointing. "There's the police, so I guess we better go over here. If they already know we did a jail break –"

As if on cue, one of the uniformed Mobians turned in their direction and stretched out an arm.

"Uh, I think they know already, Sonic," Knuckles noticed, hastily throwing a look around.

Sonic was already a step ahead of his friend at plotting their escape. He really wasn't fond of another experience with their strange paralyzer things… Or their prisons for that matter. Darting around, his eyes lit on the chain of parked vehicles and he reached for the closest. The platform rested on the ground… There had to be way to get the thing floating, right?

The blue hedgehog stepped onto the plate, looking down on the stick on the front. It was tipped with a round, flat thing. Intuitively Sonic touched a finger to it, just trying to ascertain the material. He jumped a little when the small platform beneath his feet gave out a soft humming sound and smoothly lifted to about a foot's length above the floor.

"Whoa…" Sonic's finger had remained on the small plate. By chance moving it down a little, the hedgehog was startled again when the platform floated backwards a little, almost colliding with Knuckles.

The echidna was frowning upon his comrade's attempts. "Sonic, we really don't have time for any playing around…"

"Hop on," Sonic commanded. "I'll get a hang of things."

Knuckles looked doubtful, but the policemen were running towards them and for the moment the echidna deemed the weaponry they carried as more dangerous than the blue hedgehog operating this weird vehicle. He climbed onto the platform behind Sonic, getting a grip around his waist as there wasn't anything else to hold on to. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Nope." Sonic grinned, sliding his index finger forwards on the… control panel or whatever it might be called. Their ride responded immediately, the humming noise rising in pitch and then it shot off, the acceleration so fast Knuckles almost lost his grip and let out a chocked gasp when the reflexive motion of latching harder onto Sonic got his broken arm bumping into the hedgehog's back.

"Oww…"

Sonic moved his finger back a little and slightly to the left to force the platform gear thing into a curve. "I'm sorry. This isn't as easy as it looks…"

Knuckles grunted. "Uh-huh…"

"At least we got out of there, didn't we?" Sonic grinned, slaloming around other, slower vehicles on the track. He really was getting a hang of things… and it was fun.

The hedgehog's enthusiasm about their new ride and their escape got a dent when Knuckles behind him groaned. "We sure did, but we got company."

"What?!" Sonic's head whirled around. Knuckles was right, they were being followed by several blue-flashing vehicles and –

"SONIC! Look out!"

Knuckles' shout made Sonic look back around just in time to find a street sign approaching them at overspeed.

"Whaaa!" He jerked his finger to the left on the control pad, the jolt threatening to throw them off balance. Sonic counter steered, their vehicle swaying dangerously on an unintended slalom course until he managed to stabilize it again.

"That was close…", he wheezed out.

"Yeah… Look where you're going! And try not to kill us both!"

Sonic narrowly missed another slow-going vehicle whose rider looked very confused at them whizzing by. "Will do my best…"


	14. Infiltration

It all went almost like last time. Tails guided the group through the same vent tunnel and the team carefully made their way past laser fences and ventilator blades. Everything pretty much same procedure as last time, just that this time the group consisted of Shadow, Rouge and Omega accompanying him instead of Sonic and Knuckles… Nothing against his new allies, but Tails would have preferred his friends at his side. Maybe he would have felt safer that way…

Breaking into one of Eggman's bases always made him nervous. In fact, Tails knew that – though hiding it well behind a coat of cockiness and displayed casualness – _Sonic_ was nervous as well when they entered the mad scientist's lair. The two-tailed fox could only guess that Knuckles shared the feeling; as long as his temper didn't get the better of him the red echidna's emotions were hard to discern.

Looking briefly over his shoulder, Tails wondered for a moment if his company was experiencing similar feelings. Shadow's face was cast in the typical, frowning look he was known for, the red eyes piercing as they looked straight ahead. Even though he'd never seen the black hedgehog look anything like enthusiastic, he'd never seemed doubtful either. Shadow was walking self-confidence. Usually, Tails used to say he was arrogant with his 'I'm the Ultimate' attitude; right now he found the notion that there was _someone_ around that at least _seemed_ even surer of himself than Sonic strangely reassuring.

Slightly behind the black and red hedgehog, Rouge the bat, dressed in a skin-tight, black jumpsuit, was walking across the curved floor of the large vent tunnel in a mannerism that would have fitted perfectly into an expensive boutique; her movements flowing smoothly, her head confidently held high, large ears perked, turquoise eyes twinkling with almost anticipation and her feet, though in high-heeled boots, hardly made a sound when gracefully touching the metallic floor.

The bat's sound level was nothing compared to the last of the group; Omega's steel feet clamped loudly whenever they hit the ground, no feathering sufficient to completely dampen the force of the bulky robot's weight. Tails wasn't anything like sure on the matter, but he guessed Omega's weight something between two hundred kilos and half a ton. Or something like that…

If the sentient combat robot of the E-series knew actual feelings was unknown to Tails; personally the fox believed he did, after all, he could think and had his own personality. And apparently he'd made friends with Rouge and Shadow. So if you could be friends with someone you had feelings, right? Still, no matter if or if not Omega was feeling anything about entering the base, you couldn't see anything in his face; red optics emitting a steady glow, E-123 Omega was marching after the three Mobians.

The uncommon group reached the end of the air bent, the tunnel ending as a hole in the wall of a high and long corridor, huge pistons labouring to each side of the path about ten feet below them.

Turning around to face the rest, Tails pointed down. "We came in the same way last time. There's a door about three hundred meters behind the next corner. That's where we split up; Sonic and Knuckles went ahead while I tried to hack into Eggman's computer using a terminal at the wall."

"Do we know where Eggman keeps the Chaos Emerald?", Rouge asked, leaning out of the vent opening to take a look at the corridor below.

"When we were here it was at one of Eggman's test sides, a big room at the other end of the base," Tails replied. "We'll head for the computer first; when I get in I should be able to tell you exactly where to find it."

Shadow nodded curtly. "Lead the way, Prower."

Tails turned towards the exit again, trying to spot any robots and consider where they would appear.

"ENVIRONMENT SCAN COMPLETED," Omega's snarling voice cut into the fox' pondering. "No inferior Eggman robots in direct proximity. Continue with scan of further distant locations."

Tails grinned. There were upsides to counting a robot to your team, he found. Using his twin tails for support, Tails jumped down into the main corridor. The others followed suit, Rouge gliding softly, Shadow's landing cushioned by his hoverskates and Omega thankfully activating his jet pack so they all made it down without making any suspicious noises. If things went how Tails wanted, nobody would notice them until they were gone again.

Carefully advancing deeper into the base, Tails led his team to the point where he and his currently missing friends had parted ways a couple days ago. Activating the computer terminal was easier now that he'd done it already before and Tails was quickly granted access to Eggman's data.

"What are you looking for?", Shadow queried, looking over Tails' shoulder.

"Something that looks like a storage list. The… inventory," Tails explained, his eyes not leaving the screen. "Behind everything Eggman builds or does, no matter how weird it looks, there's always a plan. So, I hope he also keeps plans of where everything is in this base."

"He better does," Rouge noticed. "This place is huge; what if he loses something in here somewhere? That'd be trouble for our old Egghead…" She giggled.

Tails listened to her just with one ear, his brain focused on flipping through screens and screens full of file names and registry entries. Finally, a smile curved his lips and he selected a file. "Bingo!"

"Bingo: a gambling activity that requires players to collect numbers according to a linear geometric pattern on a three by three grid," Omega snarled. "Performed in Casino Park. Meeting the requirements is rewarded with rings. Purpose of 'Bingo': Collecting rings quickly. Logical reason for paying out rings when collecting numbers: not found. Bingo is not logical." The robot paused in his speech, tracking Tails with his glooming optics. "This unit does not understand the connection between the activity known as 'bingo' and the current situation."

Tails giggled. "I didn't mean the game; shouting 'bingo' is similar to shouting something like… 'eureka'. It means that I found what I was searching for."

"Why does the fox unit not phrase what he means directly?", Omega wondered.

Shrugging, Tails returned his attention to the screen. "Because shouting 'I found what I was looking for' sounds stupid… And it's too long."

"Understood." The red robot nodded his head.

Scanning the sheer endless list of equipment, Tails still found what he needed rather quickly. What was mostly up to the fact 'Chaos Emerald' began with a 'c'. The fox closed the file and opened up a layout of the base, searching for the room number. "Okay, got it." He pointed his index finger at the screen. "This is the room with the vault Eggman keeps the Chaos Emerald in along with some other things of big value." He moved his finger. "And this is where we are at the moment."

"That's quite a walk," Rouge noticed, folding her arms. "And this place looks like a labyrinth. We're gonna get lost or something."

Shadow shook his head. "We won't if we split up. You got a radio in your belt" - the hedgehog indicated the bat's equipment tucked into the belt around her hips - "and Omega can use his internal radio communication. If Omega stays with Tails, they can guide us right to the vault."

"And Omega can have an eye on our little nerd here," Rouge noticed. "And flamethrowers and machine guns to keep off any bad company." She blinked an eye at Tails.

The two-tailed fox smiled. "Sounds like a plan."

"Mission: Guard current location, keep harm from friendly 'Tails' unit and stay in radio contact with Shadow and Rouge," Omega summarized.

"You got it." Tails smirked, watching Rouge and Shadow exchange a nod before disappearing into the long corridor leading towards the base's center.

* * *

"Sonic! They're shooting at us!"

"What?!" Knuckles' call caused Sonic to try another look back.

"Stop it!", the echidna scolded him. "Look where you're going!"

"Tell me what they do then!", Sonic commanded, but got himself to concentrate on driving again. Once you got through it, the controls were actually pretty fine-tuned and easy to use.

"Alright… They're about fifty meters behind us. Try not to go in one direction for too long so they can't take a good aim and –" Knuckles interrupted himself at yet another slightly too abrupt dodging maneuver. "Scratch that… Just go faster."

Sonic shook his head, his index finger already positioned at the frontmost point of the control panel. "Sorry to disappoint you, this thing just _isn't_ any faster."

A grunt came from Knuckles behind him. "Then we have a small problem… As it looks, their things are just as fast as ours."

"Damnit…" Sonic bit his lip, forcing the board into a half stable zigzag course.

"Tell me you got another great escape plan."

Sonic shrugged a little. "One, and I'm not sure if you like it."

"Since when do I like your plans?", Knuckles deadpanned.

"My words exactly." Sonic grinned.

A bluish beam of energy shot by, barely missing Knuckles' left leg.

"Whoa!", the echidna yelped, staring after the bolt. "Uh… I changed my mind… How was your plan again?"

Sonic laughed. "Alright, you called for it. Now listen to the incredible smartness of Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Get to the point, we're kinda on a schedule here, hedgehog," Knuckles groaned.

"Hehe, fine." Sonic curved in in front of yet another slow-moving floaty platform board. "Remember the 'do something unexpected' technique? There's one advantage we have over them: They can't go any faster."

"Huh?" Sonic could practically hear the frown forming on Knuckles' brow now when he retorted: "As we've so nicely noticed already, our ride doesn't go any faster either, dumb-ass."

"Our _ride_ not…" Sonic grinned to himself. "But I do. I outrun these things in my sleep, and going backwards."

The echidna grunted. "Fine for you then, hedgehog. What about me?"

"Don't worry, I won't leave you here. Just hold on to my arm and we're gone in a flash and a whoosh!" The blue hedgehog made a wide gesture with his free arm.

"Hey," Knuckles complained, "Try being careful just once, okay? You have an odd tendency trying to rip out my arms whenever you pull me along! And this time one of them is already broken, y'know?"

Sonic nodded, serious again. He'd not forgotten his friend's injury. He didn't want to hurt him… but he couldn't think of any other way of escape, and so far, all the times they'd performed this move, him just grabbing his friends and running them out of trouble had always worked quite nicely. "I'll do my best, promise."

"Uh-hu," Knuckles muttered, not really sounding trustful.

"Really, I'll be careful," Sonic insisted. He turned so he could hold his left hand out at the echidna. "Just hold on; I'll say when to jump off, 'kay?"

Getting a good grip around Sonic's wrist, Knuckles nodded hesitantly. "Fine…"

Turning back around, Sonic smiled a little. "Good. See that rather narrow left curve in front of us?"

"Yes." Knuckles' answer was short and he still sounded nothing but enthusiastic.

"There's a gap between two skyscrapers to the right of it. See that as well?" Sonic wished he could have pointed at it, but his left hand was interlocked with Knuckles' and his right needed to keep their vehicle going.

Luckily Knuckles' eyes were sharp. "Got it."

"Since there's no road going there, the guys trailing us will get into some trouble. We jump when we're right next to it." The hedgehog's eyes were fixed to the goal as he spoke, instinct judging speed, momentum and angles quicker than anyone else could.

"Alright," his red friend confirmed.

Almost patiently Sonic waited for their vehicle to reach the exact position. Closer, closer, almost there… "NOW!" Knuckles' timing wasn't too bad, the jump nearly synchronized. The nanoseconds Sonic's feet reached the ground faster were actually helpful; as soon as he felt ground under his soles the hedgehog was running, accelerating quick enough to avoid the echidna clinging to his arm touching the ground at all. The last thing they needed was Knuckles bumping into the floor.

Or the wall of a skyscraper, but even as steering and dodging had troubled him a little riding the board, it had been nothing in comparison to running. Sonic had, quite frankly, been born for that kind of thing and he instinctively dodged obstacles before having fully consciously noticed them. Knuckles was another matter; he yelped several times while Sonic was quick-stepping through narrow, dark alleyways.

Grinning, Sonic shot him a short glance over his shoulder. "Relax. This is nothing."

"Look. Where. You're. Going. Hedgehog!", Knuckles shouted over the scream of the wind about them, putting emphasis into each of his words.

Still grinning and a teasing remark readily on his lips Sonic turned around again, just to yelp himself this time. There was a wall, directly in front of them and nowhere left or right to get past it. So it was just up… Shouldn't be a problem…

Concentrated, Sonic tracked the bottom of the wall, timing his steps. The most critical moment always was the first step on the wall; you had to adjust to an entirely different stance to run upwards and a sudden change in gravity.

The balls of his right foot connected with the wall. Knee bend, Sonic forced his movement upwards, leaning towards the wall just slightly and letting the left foot follow the right, running as if there were invisible treads in the wall to hit. Just that there weren't any.

Proud with himself, the hedgehog noticed the 'curve' of his run upwards had been so perfect, so _smooth_ Knuckles had not collided with the wall. He was hanging down on his arm, now that gravity got its grip on his body suddenly a lot heavier. Slowing them down… and the top was still far.

Instinctively Sonic did what he did almost everytime he wanted to run really fast: He sensed out for the energy around him. He'd learned it what felt a long time ago, drawing on the dark blue spectrum of the chaos energy, the power of the Emerald of speed. First, he'd needed to hold this Emerald to boost his speed, but soon he'd learned to tap into the bit of free energy around him. It wasn't enough to keep it up for more than a second or two, but that could already save one's tail as Sonic had learned. The problem of the chaos speed boost's durability had been solved when Sonic had remembered what Knuckles had told him once about the golden rings: They were chaos energy like the Emeralds were, just with a lot less power. By collecting enough of the gold rings as he went, Sonic could always get enough blue chaos energy to boost. As a nice side-effect, drawing on this power surrounded him with a shield of blue wind that in itself drew in rings in the proximity. Tails had tried explaining him how that worked, but all Sonic had understood was that it worked a little like a magnet. The hedgehog didn't actually care how it worked; he'd learned to use this type of energy on instinct.

Now, as he tried to feel out for it and draw it in to escape gravity's throes, suddenly, for the first time he could remember, it wasn't there. There was nothing like it around, not the tiniest trace of blue chaos power. There were rings to the left of him, hovering right in front of the vertical surface of the wall, but even from them no bit of energy was seeping out for him to grab.

The absence of the so familiar energy to use startled Sonic enough to add to the constant loss of speed. "SONIC! We're not gonna make it!", Knuckles shouted.

"I… I can't boost," Sonic gasped out, still confused and not fully knowing how to deal with it.

"Stop talking nonsense and RUN!"

Knuckles' command, though not quite reassuring, still did a good job getting Sonic's mind back on track. He bit his bottom lip as he pushed his legs forwards… uh… _upwards_ , not gaining speed but at least stopping to lose it. He could see the top of the building closing in and in spite of Knuckles' perception of their situation _Sonic_ knew they were indeed going to make it. He'd run a lot more walls than Knuckles, after all.

When he overshot the edge of the wall and was catapulted a few meters further into the air, for a second Sonic just stared at the roof of the skyscraper, cramped with antennas and other weird looking, _sharp_ things. "Oh oh…" Green eyes hastily scanned the messy roof below them in search for a safe landing space. He caught sight of a large rail in the last possible moment, angling the beginning fall towards it. "Over there, Knux! We'll grind on that rail there!"

As the natural glider he was, Knuckles' airborne manoeuvres where better than Sonic's and the echidna followed the move the hedgehog initiated immediately without saying a word.

Sonic softly landed on the rail, sliding along on it. Seeing Knuckles having a stable stand on it as well, he released his wrist, keeping his stability with one arm and pointing ahead with the other one. "This is our way out of town, I guess!"

Knuckles just grumbled and Sonic kept his look ahead. The rail went across several more roofs, passed by what had to be some kind of giant power plant and ended atop a cliff on a chain of hills. Everything behind that spot lay in darkness.

Sonic jumped down when the rail angled at ninety degrees to disappear in the ground. He landed on grass and a short, real look at the rail revealed it to be a kind of pipe rather than anything else. Sonic shrugged about it and turned around to Knuckles who'd also dropped down.

Had Sonic assumed he'd be happy to be out of this future city, he was wrong. Knuckles' violet eyes were blazing. "Just what did you think you were doing back there? You almost got us killed on that wall!"

The blue hedgehog sighed. "I didn't. We landed on that rail thing here just great and we had enough speed left."

"It was luck!", Knuckles insisted, still glaring. "I would have thought you know how fast you are and what kind of wall you can get up safely by now, hedgehog."

"Well, thing is, I do!" Sonic folded his arms, starting to feel insulted. "If everything would have been normal, we'd have been up there in a flash!"

"So, and why weren't things normal, hedgehog? I'll tell you why," Knuckles snapped. "Because you didn't think before doing something. Like you always do. That's why!"

"It is not!", Sonic shouted, closing the distance between them. "Fact is, usually I run up walls alone and not carrying someone heavier than me! Still, I would have handled that just great, but I couldn't boost to get enough speed!"

Confusion mingled into the expression in Knuckles' eyes, replacing some of the anger. "You couldn't – _what_?"

"Boost," Sonic repeated. "That's… I call it the Sonic boost. I use some chaos energy around me or taken from the rings I collected to increase my speed and acceleration. I do that all the time... I don't even think about it! But when I tried to get some more juice on that wall…"

"Nothing happened," Knuckles finished and the fire in his eyes went out completely.

"Yes." Sonic took a slow breath, feeling the tension between them slip away but he didn't know why it did. "But I don't understand…"

"Have you tried… _boosting_ since we're… lost in time?", Knuckles asked when Sonic trailed off.

Silently the hedgehog shook his head.

"Have you collected a single ring since we're here?"

Another shake.

"Remember what I told you about… how I can't feel the Master Emerald?" Knuckles' voice was quiet.

This time, Sonic nodded, realization dawning. "And you said you couldn't use rings to heal your arm…"

"Yes." Knuckles let out a sigh. "It almost makes sense, doesn't it? I can't use the Master Emerald; you can't use any chaos powers either."

Sonic stared down on his toes. "Guess you're right…" A few moments passed in silence and the blue hedgehog looked back over the city, an endless sea of small lights in the darkness of night. "I think we better find a place to camp," he noticed.

Knuckles just nodded and they strolled along the edge of the cliff separating them from the town. Almost a minute went by without words again before the echidna spoke up. "I'm sorry. For... blaming you… and shouting at you…"

Giving him a smile, Sonic just shrugged lightly. "Forgiven. Just try to believe me when I say something next time, will ya?"

It wasn't bright enough to really see it, but Sonic was still rather sure Knuckles was turning red. At least he was looking down on his feet, his entire stance screaming embarrassment. "Okay…"

Sonic grinned, reaching out to pat the echidna on the back. "Umm… What do you think of dinner?"

* * *

Finally, after a wait that had been way too long for his tastes, Robotnik's finger, protected from the freezing cold by thick gloves, pressed the fire button. The reassembly had taken up more time than he had calculated… but that was now forgotten.

Immediately after his fingertip hit the sensor switch, a steady hum was growing behind the laser unit's casing, ever increasing in intensity for a couple of long drawn seconds. A soft vibration ran through the entire cannon, then a beam almost as thick as its creator's torso flashed out of the cannon's muzzle.

Robotnik's eyes went wide with awe. This brightness! Like a beam of the very sun, blazing in hot white, brighter than the snow and hotter than fire. Though lasting just a second, the first test beam already heated the air, formerly well below freezing level, so drastically that when the laser switched itself off again the cooling back down air was compressed so rapidly the sound it caused approached a sonic boom or a small explosion. A wide grin was on Robotnik's face.

He did a quick check of the cannon and laser unit to see what effect firing it had had on the weapon. Apparently, it was doing quite well. Satisfied, the doctor then set off in his Egg-O-Matic to examine the remains of the ice peak he'd fired at.

Upon arriving at the spot, even Robotnik had to admit the sight was quite imposing. The laser had cut fine through the middle of the frozen structure, a hole just slightly larger in diameter than the cannon's beam was situated right in the middle of it, its edges perfectly smooth. A wonderful piece of accurate work.

The bizarre looking ice form now looked even more bizarre. Its socket stood in a poodle of water, the remains of the ice that had been where now there was aforementioned hole. Half of the ice sculpture had toppled to the site, its sharp tips and edges embedded in the snow around. Due to the hole the laser had burned into it, it had lost its stability.

Robotnik smiled, very satisfied with his work now. If the rest of the tests went as good, the world would soon behold his destructive masterpiece…

* * *

From somewhere distant, somewhere behind all those large tubes and wires and obscure machinery, a pounding, rhythmic noise what rolling through the tunnels and corridors. It wasn't exactly too loud to bear, not even too loud to disturb a conversation, but it was... yeah, _annoying_.

Shadow frowned, his pointed ears twitching a little as he tried to get a better grip on the persistent background noise and figure out what might cause it.

His companion was walking half a meter in front of him, her movements flowing smoothly. _Elegant_. Something about Rouge he couldn't even exactly name was just that.

As if she'd felt his gaze on her, the bat slowed her pace for just two steps to fall back and continue the walk through the odd environment of Eggman's base at the hedgehog's side. For a moment she looked at him sideways wearing just a silent, mysterious smile on her face, then a twinkle lit in her turquoise eyes. "You know, I wouldn't have thought you'd agree on doing the foxy little nerd that favour."

"It seemed fair to me." Shadow shrugged.

"Aw, come on, you can't fool me. Everybody else, maybe, but not me." She was still smiling. "I know you, Shadow. There's more to it."

"No." The black and red hedgehog shook his head. He wasn't exactly lying. He wouldn't lie to her. Not her, or Omega. The only people close enough to him to consider friends.

But he wasn't exactly telling the truth either… Thing was, he wasn't too sure on what really _was_ the truth, why he'd just said yes to Tails. All he knew was that he'd been staring into those cerulean eyes with that pleading look in them… and he'd just said yes. Maybe, deep down, in that moment Tails had reminded him a tad too much of another child he'd once known… long ago. A child that had been his only family.

Nothing about Tails was like Maria… At least Shadow thought so. Until he'd been standing before him, desperately begging for his help, even though he tried to hide the desperation part of it. Perhaps there was something about kids that made them all similar. Sometimes.

But whatever it was, Shadow wasn't going to broadcast his thoughts. Or what he thought could even be feelings.

"Really not?"

Rouge's question dragged Shadow back to reality. Momentarily speechless, he just stared at Rouge.

She smiled. "Are you going to answer me, Shadow?" The bat blinked her eyes at him, her long eyelashes fluttering.

Shadow still stared. Was she _flirting_ with him? Yeah, right, Rouge the bat flirts with everybody if she thinks it'll help her… But so far, he'd always been the one exception. It made Shadow feel special that he was so much a friend to her she dropped her seductive games for him. "No."

Rouge giggled. "Ah, Mister Ultimate Lifeform is having another monosyllabic phase, I see…"

Shadow grumbled, folding his arms. Why did she have to irritate him? "We're on a mission; that's not the time for small talk, Rouge."

The white bat pouted. "Aw, there's nothing happening here. I'm bored."

Swallowing his reply, Shadow stopped his walk where the corridor ended, the floor before them forming a rectangular platform below which a wide hall stretched out, hundreds of meters high, probably a thousand wide. It was full of a lot more giant, noisy machinery. The pounding sound he'd heard before had risen in volume, the source somewhere in the factory maze below, and the smell of oils and some sort of exhausts crept up his nostrils. Between the huge machines, groups of robots marched back and forth, some seeming to work on the automatons, maintaining or cleaning them, other obviously armed ones standing guard over them.

Apparently Rouge had spotted them as well. "Ah, there's the little robot guys. I was wondering if anyone is even at home…"

Shadow nodded, standing with still crossed arms at the edge of the platform, observing the robots. "Call Omega and Tails. We need to know where to go from here."

Rouge complied without comments, drawing her mobile radio from the hold on her belt and walking a few steps back into the corridor they'd come from to escape some of the noise level.

Shadow stood silently as he waited for her return, his red eyes roaming the giant room below, trying to spot possible routes through it already and guessing the numbers of enemies to expect contact with.

"Alright, how's it look down there?", Rouge asked as she reappeared at his left side. Her tone was professional, and when Shadow turned to look at her the playful smile she'd worn before had faded from her lips. Now there was work to do and she was all the professional agent and treasure huntress who'd done the entire sneak-into-dangerous-places deal countless times already.

"I don't think anyone has noticed us yet. Neither Tails and Omega. If they knew intruders were there, they'd be alert already," he noticed, pointing at the robot groups.

Rouge nodded. "They're not expecting us. If we're lucky, we can get past without being seen."

"Lead the way then. Omega told you where to go?" Shadow turned to his friend.

"I'm all set," she affirmed. "Let's go."


	15. Companions

There wasn't much to see from where Knuckles sat half under a bush, overlooking the bright, colourful lights of the city stretching up to where they met the horizon. Like in Carnival Night Zone or parts of the Casino Park, there weren't actually any stars to see; the lights of the city too bright to allow the small twinkles from the skies to reach the planet's surface.

And Knuckles would have given so much to see them now. A look at the night sky. A look at something familiar. Instead, all he could see was a mess of colours below and blackness above. So full of people down there… and still, something about it all made him feel dead inside. Something about this place seemed so… _vast_.

A colourful abyss.

In a way Knuckles was relieved when he heard the soft footfalls of Sonic's return. He pulled his gaze off the city below and turned his head to the hedgehog. Sonic was carrying a plastic bag, telling the echidna his foraging had been successful after all.

Sitting down on the moss next to Knuckles, Sonic placed the bag in front of them, his green eyes turning piercing as they swiftly moved up and down the echidna, suddenly making Knuckles feel uncomfortably exposed.

"How's your arm?", the hedgehog queried.

Knuckles grunted. "Broken."

A chuckle came from his blue spiked companion. "I figured."

"Then why do you ask?", Knuckles snapped, feeling bad for doing it the second the words left his mouth. Even in his current mood he could see Sonic was just trying to help. He'd taken the job of getting supplies a while ago with the simple comment that Knuckles was hurt and should take it easy. The echidna would never ask for this consideration, but it wasn't uncomfortable knowing Sonic cared for his well-being, and he was indeed more tired than he cared to admit, let alone to Sonic. Seemed like he didn't need to either way, and Knuckles wasn't sure if he liked that.

"Geez, what's with the long face?", the hedgehog asked, his tone softer than the usual cheesiness and Knuckles noticed with slight surprise he'd just skipped on the sharp retort.

Still, all he could do was shrug, and then wince in pain that eagerly reminded him movements like this one were to be avoided in the next time. Again, Knuckles was stricken with a sense of being almost glad Sonic ignored the hiss he couldn't contain. A long moment of silence passed when Knuckles didn't reply to Sonic's question, and after a moment the echidna's eyes returned to looking over the huge, foreign city.

"You're homesick, aren't you?", Sonic's quiet question unexpectedly broke the silence and for a second Knuckles wondered when his friend had gotten so psychic. Either that or he was pretty easy to read at the moment.

"Is it that obvious?", he asked, also rather quiet in tone.

Sonic shrugged. "Kinda, yeah. I've known you for a while. You got this longing in your eyes, this... sadness." Sonic tilted his head at him, and the guardian suddenly noticed the droopy ears. "I don't like people being sad."

Knuckles felt the briefest smile tug on his lips for just an instant. "Who does?"

"Point." Sonic smiled a little as well. "Eggman, I suppose," he said then and even Knuckles had to smirk a little at that.

The echidna let another moment go by in silence before speaking again. "Have you ever felt… like being totally misplaced? Like being at a place you don't belong, doing things you shouldn't do?"

A frown slipped over Sonic's features and he took a few seconds to answer, and when he spoke up it wasn't the wise-crack casual remark Knuckles had come to expect, but . "I guess a few times, yeah. My first fight against Eggman, or when I had to go through the Labyrinth Zone or your Hydrocity, or when Dark Gaia's energy had turned me into a werehog for a while, taking my looks, my speed… I wasn't even totally sure if I was really _me_ , y'know? So, yeah, I think it happens to all of us sometimes."

Knuckles nodded, feeling a little better at finding more understanding than he'd thought he'd get. "I've felt like this a lot. Everything other than Angel Island is… like a different world to me."

One eyebrow raised, Sonic studied him for a second. "Don't you find it nice exploring it? Getting to see new things? I love that kind of thing."

Just in time Knuckles remembered not to shrug. "I'm not sure. I've been to places and seen things I really liked. Seaside Hill was great; some of the places I went to with you and Tails were really nice, I'd even like to visit a few of them again. Station Square and Metropolis… I'm not sure if I found them more scary and confusing or fascinating. I guess it's just they're so different from what I know, and I don't have the time to get to know everything well enough to get used to it."

"You could just tag along with Tails and me, we could show you all sorts of stuff," Sonic offered smiling.

The red echidna curtly inclined his head at him. "I might get back at you." He knew he probably wouldn't, but it seemed the polite thing to say and he smiled back at the hedgehog for a second before seriousness claimed him again. "But this time it is even worse. We're being randomly put into a time and place, each of them is different, and we hardly have the time or resources trying to find a way to stop this from happening. We're lost, Sonic, more lost than I thought someone could get."

"I know."

The comeback was so unexpected that Knuckles' head snapped to fully face the hedgehog and he stared at him. Sonic, of all people? And here Knuckles was thinking his comrade thought of this whole thing as a great new adventure game. "You know?"

"Is there an echo?" Sonic flashed a brief grin before turning serious again. "I'm not dumb, Knux. Whatever is happening to us, it started at Eggman's weird lab. It could be a great new plan of his to get rid of us, or it really was an accident. Whatever. The machine was left in our time, so was Eggman. Even if we had the machine, neither of us would know how to work it to get us back home. If Tails was with us, he'd maybe find a way, but he isn't." Sonic sighed. "As long as we don't know what got us here, we can't make it get us back." The blue hedgehog paused for a second. "I've been thinking about what you said about Chaos Control."

"We figured it wasn't your fault," Knuckles noticed.

"Right." Sonic nodded and a brief smile flashed on his face. "Still, there was an Emerald around when this weird time travel mess started. We all know they do very weird stuff; I wouldn't be too surprised if you can use them for time machines. If we had an Emerald I'd be tempted to try and make it time-teleport us back. It can't seriously get much worse, can it? But we don't have one. So, for now all we can do is to try not getting ourselves killed until we find something to get us out of this crap."

Knuckles looked at him, feeling desperation sweep over him again. "What if we don't? What if we never get home?"

Sonic's eyes turned fierce. "We will. I don't know how, but we will get home. I promise. Trust me, okay?"

"Is there anything that could stand a chance against your optimism?", Knuckles wondered, half grateful and half irritated by Sonic's mindset.

The blue hedgehog grinned, not seeming to mind the stare directed at him. "I don't think it has been invented yet." He reached over to place a hand on Knuckles' shoulder. "Now come on. Heads up, okay? Experience has taught me if we don't let this stuff get us down, we're a good way down the winning road already."

In spite of himself, Knuckles found a smile curve his lips. Sonic's hand gently squeezed his shoulder and oddly enough the small gesture was just as supporting as any of his words. He actually felt better now, after talking to Sonic of all people. That was new. "Fine."

"That's the spirit, Knux." Sonic smiled, not so awkwardly patting his shoulder again before retracting his hand.

More by coincidence than anything else, Knuckles' gaze fell on the plastic bag Sonic had brought, and he pointed, glad it offered a change of topics. "Did you find anything edible?"

The blue hedgehog chuckled. "I guess all these guys can't be wrong. At least it won't poison us. If it tastes… I took the things that looked less weird than the rest."

Knuckles grimaced. "Very promising."

"We'll just have to try it out." Sonic shrugged and began digging into the bag.

Their doubts turned out baseless; even though you had to pretty much get used to the odd looks of the foodstuff, it tasted surprisingly good. Lacking flavours you could actually place, but not bad; and they were both hungry enough not to care.

Having finished their improvised dinner, the two friends agreed to take the chance now that they had some peace and snatch a few hours of sleep.

* * *

Sonic awoke to the darkness of night around him. A soft breeze was brushing through his fur, carrying along a quiet whisper as it went through the grass and the leaves of the few bushes around. It wasn't exactly warm, but not cold enough to wake him. After all, he was no stranger to sleeping outside. For another few seconds he lay and listened, trying to figure out what it was that had interrupted his slumber, then he sat up with an frown.

It might as well have been Knuckles. First best solution, and it wasn't far-fetched, Sonic thought. Next to him, the echidna rolled over again, breathing a tad too fast for someone in peaceful sleep, and mumbled something the blue hedgehog failed to fully pick up.

Sonic turned his head, studying the crunched up face between slightly unordered dreadlocks. He reached out a hand to shake him. "Knuckles." The guardian jerked upright so fast even Sonic's high-speed reflexes barely found the time to dodge. "Whoa, easy. I'm not the monster!"

Confused and struggling to shake off sleep, Knuckles stared at him as if he wanted to challenge the statement. "Huh…? What?"

Sonic tried a smile. "Man, I don't wanna have your nightmares, y'know?"

Apparently the echidna was starting to wake up, at least he seemed to have caught Sonic's words. "My…? I don't –"

"- happen to have any nightmares?", the blue hedgehog finished sarcastically, eyebrows raised. "Of course you don't. All that rolling around and talking in your sleep is just for fun; I get it."

Violet eyes stared at him, still glazed with tiredness, but irritation visible in their glitter. "Talk –"

"Don't worry." Sonic shrugged. "Nothing I could have picked, anyway." Knuckles seemed to relax a little at that, and Sonic stood up to walk the few meters towards the edge of their cliff and take a look at the lights of the foreign city below them. It wasn't that anything about them had changed, but the situation felt a little awkward. He guessed just woken up echidnas would need some space unless you wanted them getting moody on you. Well, more moody than they alreay were.

The city below really looked the same as before, neon lights and blinking colours melting into a glow that covered what lay between the dark hills and the horizon with what resembled a cheese cover of light, dimming out at the top towards a black sky. No way telling how much time had passed. Unless they knew the rough location of the city and the time of the year anyway, it wasn't easy guessing how long the night might be.

He turned around, about to suggest they should go back to sleep, when he noticed the way Knuckles' good hand was holding his forehead, the sleepiness almost drained from his face to be replaced with a painful expression.

Sonic opened his mouth to ask what was wrong when it hit him as well; the pain drilling itself into his skull in agonizing slowness. Just a second later the light was there as well, as if it had needed this moment to catch up. The picture of Knuckles sitting there clutching his head, his face probably mirroring his own, was blurring into the white mist, into blinding brightness that swallowed up the world. Swallowed _him_ up.

The hedgehog gasped, trying to keep his bearings, pressing the words out between ground teeth. " _Not again_ …"

* * *

Shadow stood half with his back towards Rouge who carefully leaned against the metal casing of a high machine block, looking past the corner of it. His right hand held his gun and his eyes darted across the space they'd already covered, securing her back.

"Alright, hun, the coast looks clear," Rouge informed him quietly.

The hedgehog nodded, acknowledging it. He shot a last, long glance through the area behind them, then followed his friend as she slipped around the corner.

His hoverskates gently slid across a floor made from what looked like dark red tiling, the gaps between the single pieces glowing in a faint, yellowish light. To each side of the about three meters wide pathway, large gear-wheels were rotating on equally large shafts. The largest of them ended in the side of a cubic machine a couple meters in front of them.

"Eww, I guess that thing's busted," Rouge noticed, stopping her walk next to the automaton, looking at her boots in distaste.

Shadow's eyes followed the puddle of black liquid she stood in up to where it was leaking from a tube going into the cube-shaped machine. "Seems the good doctor's inventions don't always works as he'd please," he said, sarcasm bringing a rare smirk to his face.

Rouge giggled. "Since when do they ever work the way he wants them to, anyway?"

Shadow shrugged and started walking on. He had not gotten far when a good dozen of Egg Shooters dropped down in front of them, leaving the black hedgehog wondering for just a second where they had come from again. Eggman had some kind of way of teleporting his robots, or he had some sort of cloaking device. If the latter was an option, Shadow didn't quite understand why they would deactivate it when going into combat. After all, being invisible would be of use in a fight.

At the same time the robots raised their weaponed arms, Shadow lifted his own gun, his index finger deliberately pulling the trigger. The handgun jerked upwards as the projectile shot out of its muzzle. By the time it embedded itself between the robot's eyes, the bang of the second shot already tore through the air. Shadow liked firearms, using them was more simple and required less concentration than summoning a Chaos Spear. Awesome in stressful situations, and yeah, the bangs and all that was, dare he say it, sort of fun.

Shadow kept shooting at the robots even as he dodge their fire. Calling it fire was the appropriate term, it was much more fireballs than actual projectiles. Unlike most of Eggman's models, the Egg Shooters didn't aim badly and fired in a sequence close enough to bring him into trouble dodging.

His gun choked out a clicking sound as his finger pulled the trigger again. Shadow frowned. Out of ammo. He dropped the gun to the floor. No time reloading it. For a moment he watched Rouge attacking the robots with drilling kicks from above, then he flung himself at the enemies, curling into a ball and homing in on the closest of the Egg Shooters.

Ricocheting between them too fast for their sensory to follow, Shadow had taken down five or six within seconds. He landed on springy feet, ready to take down the last remaining bot when he heard Rouge shriek.

"Eep!"

In a nanosecond, Shadow's head whirled around to where the bat was standing next to a small pile of sparking wreckage. As if in slow-motion he watched three rows of tiny fireballs shooting out of the last standing robot's torso advancing towards her. In another nanosecond, the hedgehog's right hand held a chaos spear, flinging the yellowish lance of chaos energy at the machine. He didn't wait to see it impact. He never missed.

The chaos spear had barely left his hand when Shadow leaped forwards, his hovershoes allowing him to move at a speed no none-artificial being but one blue hedgehog could match. He rammed bodily into Rouge who stared wide-eyed, the momentum of the jump throwing them both a good distance through the air.

Rouge gasped in muffled pain when she landed roughly on her back, sliding to a stop across the slippery floor. Shadow shifted his hands next to her sides, lifting his weight off her.

"… sorry," he said. It wasn't something he said very often, but it seemed kind of a polite thing to do right now.

The white bat smiled. "Don't be. You kinda saved me, sugar."

Her turquoise eyes twinkled at him and for some reason Shadow couldn't stop staring for a second. Suddenly, from the back of his mind, he heard her say 'Even if the whole world turns against you, I'll always be by your side', but he couldn't remember her ever saying something like that to him. It sounded way too corny for something Rouge would ever say. Yet, it was so… real… A memory of something… that had never happened…

"Shadow?"

Shadow cleared his throat. He wasn't a stranger to randomly happening flashbacks, but that didn't make them any less confusing. "What?"

Rouge just smiled up at him, a spark of amusement on her face as if she could look right through his gaze and see something funny. "You're an idiot, Shadow."

The hedgehog blinked. "What?"

The bat giggled. "Well, if you're not doing it, I will," she said.

Shadow opened his mouth to ask what he was not doing and should be doing, but the words got lost somewhere on the way from his brain to his tongue when her lips softly brushed against his cheek for not more than the quarter of a second.

For a moment he just stared at her. "What the hell was that for?"

Apparently even more amused now, she smiled up at him. She shrugged a little. "Saving me, I guess." She giggled at his look, cocking an eyebrow in smug humor. "Don't tell me you've never been kissed by anyone before."

Shadow blinked. Truth was, he really had never been kissed by anyone. He'd received a peck on the cheek by Maria a few times, and even with that he'd felt awkward. "Uh… No?"

Rouge's other eyebrow moved up to join the first. "Really not?"

The black hedgehog just shook his head.

"So… Did you like it?" Rouge grinned.

Shadow blinked again, mentally scolding himself for behaving so much like a retard. He was the freaking Ultimate Lifeform, for Chaos' sake! Lowering his guard was something he just _didn't_ _do_. "I… guess it was okay for this once," he pressed out, forcing some of his usual stoic composure back into his voice.

"That's great." Rouge was still grinning. "Now get off me, you're kinda heavy on the long run and I'm getting sick of lying in this oily stuff. Not to mention it reeks…"

"Oh." Shadow scrambled to his feet, the first time he could remember feeling something approaching clumsy. Also for the first time in his life, he looked around just because he desperately hoped it would give him something sensible to do.

Rouge was brushing over her jumpsuit, trying to wipe off the strains of oil from the floor on it. She muttered something under her breath, gave up, and looked at Shadow. A wide smile returned to her face. "You know, you're cute when you're embarrassed. If I had known it was so easy to irritate you, I wouldn't have wasted years trying so hard."

Finding he was indeed irritated, but inexplicably not actually mad at her, Shadow growled lowly, crossing his arms. "I'm not –"

She laughed. "Fine, I take it back. You're a threatening, chaos-powered killing machine on hoverskates."

A chuckle escaped the hedgehog's throat in spite of himself. He could deal much better with the playful, testy Rouge he knew, and suddenly he found the situation amusing as well. "Get going. We got a Chaos Emerald to pick up."

* * *

Blinking rapidly in disorientation and clutching his aching head, Sonic found himself kneeling on a metallic floor. The first thing that clicking in his mind was 'Eggman's base', but the green lighting and faint hospital-like smell didn't fit in. Slowly standing up, Sonic did his best to take in the place and probably find Knuckles. "Knux?"

He didn't receive an answer from his echidna friend, but from behind sounded a yelp of surprise or shock. Spinning around, Sonic found he was facing a creature almost twice as tall as he was, dressed in a long white coat. A human.

_Am I on Earth?_

While Sonic still stood and wondered, nearing footsteps announced the arrival of more humans. Apparently having heard the first guy scream, exited chatter asked for the reasons. Upon spotting Sonic, they went quiet for just a second, then one man pointed at the blue hedgehog. "It must be a new experiment. It escaped! Call the professor and initialize the restraining process!"

A smug grin slipped on Sonic's face and he mumbled quietly to himself. "I don't know who you are and what in the world you're talking about, but wanting to play tag is a lame joke. I'm outta here. " Whirling on his heels, the hedgehog made a dash for it, leaving the bewildered humans to the gust in his wake.

Running past a window, Sonic caught just a brief glance outside, but it was enough to make him reel to a halt and walk back to look outside again. He saw the Earth, a blue shining ball in front of a starry background. Blinking, Sonic stared at the planet, looked back inside at the slightly green tinted corridors and the broad automatic doors. "Space Colony Ark…?"

The blue hedgehog was not given the time to contemplate his idea. With a bang a laser shot impacted a meter behind him. "Yikes!" Turning his head over his shoulder Sonic watched a group of humans running towards him, holding more of the guns. "You know, this is playing dirty." He narrowed his eyes and broke into a run again.

The soles of his sneakers screeched in protest as he slid around a corner, slaloming through mysterious glass boxes looking like aquariums to him, through another far too slowly opening door, hopped over a bunch of boxes and out of the room into another corridor. Two of three doors on the next intersection wouldn't open, so he just took the left path, shooting into another greenish lit room. A room without exit.

"Dang…" Kicking the ground in frustration, the hedgehog went back to the door, but it wouldn't open again. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me. Is there a switch I have to activate first or something?" He folded his arms, looking around in the blank room.

The green eyes stopped roaming at a ventilation grating close to the floor. A faintly white mist was billowing out of it. "What the…?"

A slightly sweet smell entered his nostrils. Suddenly the floor was spinning beneath his feet, the world dimming and tilting at the same time, then all Sonic felt was a brief flight of nausea, but he was knocked out before his body hit the ground.


	16. An ARK Experiment

He was still holding his head in his hand when the bright whiteness dimmed ever so slowly, one by one giving him back his senses. Knuckles blinked, registering distractedly that he was still sitting, although the grass had been replaced by what felt cold and hard underneath him, and while his eyes were not yet back to their full usefulness, his ears worked with precision already.

Wherever 'here' was, he could at least hear nothing deceiving the presence of another creature; the only sound penetrating the silence was a small whirring noise. The smell of grass and earth and the few exhaust fumes carried with the wind from the city that had filled the air before was gone, instead the air smelled… like a strange mixture of the hospital corridors and Eggman's lab.

The echidna rubbed his eyes, finally getting them to work. He knew exactly why he'd never been too fond of bright lights.

Figuring the current position left him rather vulnerable, Knuckles crawled to his feet, hissing at a short reminder from his broken arm, but it abated quicker than the day before. As much as he could reasonably expect, probably.

He took a look around, slowly rotating on the spot. A corridor, about three meters wide and as high. Floor, walls and ceiling seemed to be all made from the same material, a grey metal with a few green markings here and there. A small hatch near the floor with a grating on it proved itself to be the source of the whirring sound he'd picked up. Right on the hatch's middle sat a small ventilator. Apparently it belonged to an air conditioning system of sorts.

Across of him, the wall spotted a window. Judging from the blackness he could glimpse through it, at least the time of day had stayed roughly the same. Knuckles strolled over to the window, standing on his toes to be able to look through it properly. He stiffened.

As expected, the sky outside was a pitch black coat, a fair amount of stars twinkling on it. Not quite as expected, there was no ground beneath the window. The outside wall of the building continued downwards, painted a purplish blue with spots of red and a few blinking lights here and there. It ended abruptly in the blackness of night, not too far from a few chunks of rock, debris and pale blue metal containers that floated past. Behind them, a more distant part of the building stretched out its towers and antennas, and some more, larger rocks drifted by. In the far distance, sitting at the place where you'd search the horizon, a blue round was glowing out of the blackness, a few white spirals painted on its surface.

Knuckles slumped his forehead against the glass, feeling the cold of space seep through it no matter its thickness. "In Chaos' name…" _Space Colony Ark. Why? Why not Haunted Castle or Oil Ocean?_ Knuckles groaned aloud. He hated this blasted space station… It was more alien to him than any other place he'd ever been to, they had almost died here on their last visit, they had been forced to work with Eggman, and the Master Emerald had been in actual danger of destruction.

The distinct sound of one of the many automatic doors sliding open shook the echidna out of his moment of self-pity. He stepped back from the window, alert at the nearing sounds of footsteps. He wasn't fond of meeting anyone…

Violet eyes met the hatch of the ventilation tunnel. He wasn't sure if it was meant to have one of the tall humans fit in, but there were definite advantages to being a member of a smaller species. He yanked on the grate. Once, twice, then it gave and he stumbled, almost falling over, as it swung open like a miniature door. Quickly he scrambled into the small hole in the wall and closed the hatch behind.

The hole wasn't that small anyway, the space in the tunnel sufficient for him to turn around without actual discomfort. He tucked down near the opening, gazing past the still rotating ventilator that blew a soft, cooling stream of air into his face.

On the corridor outside, the feet responsible for the footsteps he'd heard were now close enough to see, their owners in the middle of a conversation as they walked past without noticing Knuckles. The echidna picked up something concerning experiments, but he didn't actually care. It was none of his business what the human inhabitants of this place did to waste their time. He remembered Tails saying on their flight in the shuttle up to the colony the people on Ark had been scientists trying to create the Ultimate Lifeform. From Knuckles' point of view, 'scientist' registered only shortly after 'Eggman' on his personal scale; and he didn't understand to the day what was so 'ultimate' about Shadow. True, the guy was a talented chaos channeller, but that was about it.

Returning his attention to his own problems, Knuckles decided to try and advance through this nice little private tunnel rather than get back outside and try taking the main route. He remembered the colony to be crowded with funny things like dynamite packs that would blow up the windows and try sucking you into space, or slimy blue monster things, or robots, or outside of it in the bubble of air around it you could at least walk rather freely, but had to look out for asteroids shooting out of the non-existent sky. And now, it seemed as if he could add crazy scientists to the list. On Knuckles' terms, about _every_ scientist was crazy. No thanks, he'd stay with the air tunnel.

That matter decided, the echidna turned back around and made his way through the small tube, stopping everytime he reached an opening hatch to throw a look at the room behind it. There was little of interest to see. Humans in white coats. Giant aquarium things. More humans in white coats. Empty rooms.

Continuing through his tunnel, Knuckles wondered when he'd stumble into Sonic. Most likely the hedgehog was trying to find breakfast. Or something like that. Knuckles grinned at the thought. It would be like Sonic at least.

* * *

In utter fascination Gerald Robotnik stared at what he could see through his microscope. The glass plate beneath it held a tiny amount of the blood sample taken from the mysterious creature they had captured an hour ago.

For now Gerald had decided to ignore the fact he had no idea where the being came from and how it had entered the colony. He was a scientist, and exploring a whole new lifeform was one of the most thrilling things he could imagine to ever do. He hoped the more knowledge he gained about all sorts of living organisms, the closer he would get to create the Ultimate Lifeform, his dream project, and his hope to find a cure for his beloved granddaughter Maria.

He tore himself loose from the sight through the microscope and span on his desk chair, facing an assistant that had entered the room already five minutes ago and had so far been ignored.

"It is incredible. I have never seen anything like this before." Gerald thoughtfully stroked his moustache. "The haemoglobin in this blood sample is capable of carrying two oxygen molecules instead of one. Strangely though, only a tenth of all bloodcells seems to use this potential. It's possible that when the creature is not in rest this changes, possibly to make up for the comparatively small lung volume." He paused in thought before finally actually focussing on his visitor. "What have you got, Joe?"

The white-coated young man handed him a folder. "We've completed the X-rays. Do you want me to sum it up for you?"

Gerald nodded. "Go ahead."

"The bones seem to be extremely hard and durable. It should be hard breaking them at all."

Gerald rubbed his chin. "This should be necessary if it trips or falls while running as fast as we have seen it can run."

"'He', Sir. It is male," Joe informed him.

"Have we been able to confirm the species?"

The assistant shrugged. "Closest match to his genetic code appear to be hedgehogs. 95 % of his genes are equivalent to hedgehog genes."

Thoughtfully Gerald tilted his head. "That's about as much as humans have to monkeys. Only primates make a closer match. If we actually have an alien from another planet here, I could imagine hedgehogs having evolved to intelligent levels there like monkeys did on Earth." He looked at his assistant again. "Can we say something about the main differences yet?"

"Other than the obvious size and built, there are also similarities, the quills for example are not much different from our hedgehogs. There are six large spines on the backside of the head, consisting of thousands of smaller quills once you take a closer look."

"I'm more interested in the head at the moment." Gerald wrang his hands. "Did the scan show us anything explaining why it has just one eye with two pupils?"

Joe nodded eagerly, pointing his boss at one x-ray picture showing the mysterious creature's skull. "He doesn't have just one eye. There are two absolutely separated eyeballs in sockets separated by bones, each with an own nerve, own muscles moving it and own eyelids. The only thing they share and cause it to look like one eye is a very thick layer of sclera covering both eyes. The sclera seems to be having microscopically vertical thin grooves through which the lachrymal is distributed."

"Most fascinating. Maybe this was needed to withstand the pressure of wind at high speeds…" Gerald chewed his bottom lip. "The brain?

"It has almost the size of a humans in spite of his small height and seems very similar from its structure. Complex speech center. It can talk. And it should be capable of rational thinking. The areas performing motion controls are larger than a human's and connected to the hypothalamus through an incredible amount of transmitters. He should have amazing reflexes."

"So we are definitively sure the creature is sentient?"

"Yes, Sir." Joe bit his lip. "What are we going to do now, Professor Robotnik?"

"We need to learn more about it. I need to know how the metabolism works so fast." Robotnik stood up. "And I need to know more about this energy this blue hedgehog seems to radiate. Is it still there?"

Joe nodded. "Our equipment is not capable of making any actual statements about the intensity, but it is still there."

Gerald smiled briefly. "Good. I'm going to have my own look at it now."

* * *

Tails' index finger slowly moved along the screen as it followed the lines on the digital map forming corridors, halls and other structures. "Okay… The next door to the right. There's a switch opening it… uh…" His gaze trailed a dotted blue line symbolizing electric wiring. "To the left of it, on the wall. Should be slightly above your heads."

"I got it. It's a kinda oversized lever to pull on," Rouge's voice sounded through light statics on the loudspeakers of Omega's radio that transmitted the fox' route advice to the other two.

"Kind of like the Doctor to have switches suited for launching a rocket even for something as simple as opening a door," Shadow put in.

A small smile on his face, Tails nodded to himself. "You'll be in a kind of big, round downwards tunnel after you open the door. It looks like there are platforms in it. You should be able to use them to get down to the bottom of it."

"Okay, Foxy." The radio clicked after Rouge's last word.

Tails scanned the map for the quickest way onward from the base of the giant tube when his ears caught the definite sounds of metal claws stomping around in a confined place. Eggman robots… The fox turned towards the noise. "Omega… We're getting company, I guess…"

"Correct. A patrol is approaching our position." E-123 Omega took a few of his loudly clamping steps towards the nearing enemies, cocking his flamethrowers. "Leave them to me."

"Uh, okay, sure." Tails shrugged, namesakes twirling agitatedly.

It took just a few seconds of waiting until a group of six Egg Pawns and Egg Fighters rounded the nearest corner and stopped upon spotting the two intruders.

Omega marched towards them. "Eggman's robots… I'll eliminate them all!" A long, almost conical flame shot out of the red robot's right weapon arm. A second later it was joined by the staccato of machine gun fire out of the left. "Annihilate!"

The first two in line crumbled to the floor, offering free attack space for the last of the E-Series robots. "Destroy!"

Tails stood with wide eyes, watching the robot patrol being reduced to a heap of charring plastic and molten metal on the floor within less than ten seconds, sparks dancing over the wreckage, and oil leaking from detached and broken wires to form a puddle on the floor that caught fire after a short moment.

Omega's flamethrowers still busily attempted torching even the last pathetic remains of the fighting machines. "Must terminate all Eggman robots!"

"Uh, ey, Omega?" Tails tilted his head, his nose wrinkling at the stinging smell of burning substances. "I guess they're already destroyed… Eggman should really build more durable ones, huh?" He giggled nervously.

The red robot turned around, thankfully extinguishing the fire and stopping to shoot. Instead, he lifted his claw-beset right arm in a gesture of triumph. "Success! All inferior machines must be eliminated!"

 _Talking about varying one's vocabulary…_ "Uh-hu…" Tails nodded, eying Omega warily. "Did anyone ever tell you you should try anger management? I even know a certain other guy that could join you with it. Tried destroying the planet because of a girl he liked… or considers blowing up his motorcycle when it breaks down…"

Omega dropped his arm, his red optics blinking. "Does not compute."

"Must be my lucky day…" Tails shrugged, trying his best to look at ease again. "Can you get our link to Shadow and Rouge back up? They should have reached the bottom of the tunnel by now."

"Acknowledged."

"Good." The two-tailed fox sighed. _Back to business then…_

* * *

He had been crawling through the air bents for hours already. Everytime he got to a grating, he looked through to see what was going on in the room behind it. Most of them seemed to be corridors, others appeared to be laboratories, full of humans in white clothing, busily working on… something. Most of Knuckles' observations ended with a 'something', being honest he had no idea what they were doing, and he didn't care. Let them to their stuff. He just needed to find Sonic.

Searching a superspeedy hedgehog in a space station as big as a small city was worse than the renown quest for needles in haystacks.

Knuckles sighed. At least he hadn't been spotted yet. It wasn't that he actually regarded a few human scientists as threats, but he was one arm short to being well equipped for a fight and if they had weapons he didn't know how he would fare, especially if some of them proved to be smart enough to exploit his weak spot.

Probably he could call it a blessing in disguise he was a lot smaller than the humans and fit into these ventilation tunnels almost without problems. The only thing that caused him some trouble was his broken arm he couldn't use, and he had hurt it a couple times already upon hitting it against the walls accidentally.

The sounds of a conversation from a grating in front of him let Knuckles drop his contemplations and he silently crawled closer until he could look into another lab. In the left of his field of sight, the echidna could see a man sitting at a desk, bend over his work at a few screens. Another one was standing close to the opposite end of the room next to a large table. Something was lying on it. Several cables and transparent tubes led up to it.

The man standing spoke up. "Hey, come look at this, okay?"

"I've seen what it looks like," the other one answered. "It's so weird, and yet kinda cute, don't you think?"

"That's not what I mean!", the first man protested. "There is something wrong. His blood pressure suddenly dropped, his pulse almost doubled and his breathing and body temperature have started to fluctuate."

This seemed to catch the other guy's interest. "Is he waking up?"

"Impossible, he's being injected with the sedative until we get other orders. Maybe the flesh sample the Professor took did some damage?"

Standing up, the second man joined the first one at the table. "It was just a few grams of muscle tissue…"

"We have to call the professor. I don't like the look of this." The first man uncomfortably shifted his weight.

"You're right. Hurry. I'm going to wait here and keep a watch."

"Right." The buzzing of the automatic door ended the conversation as one of the humans quickly exited the room, but Knuckles hardly noticed. With the human having stepped away from the table, he was able to see what was lying on their table. Long blue quills and pointy ears. Sonic.

Cursing under his breath, Knuckles didn't spend much time wondering how the hedgehog had gotten himself caught. He could think, and upbraid Sonic, later. Carefully and soundlessly he pushed the grating open and slipped into the lab, standing upright and slowly sneaking up behind the human. The man seemed too focussed on staring at Sonic to notice the tiny taps of Knuckles' feet on the floor.

Two quicker, more forceful steps was all run-up the echidna needed to jump. The side of his flat hand connected with the human's neck and he dropped down in a heap.

Knuckles spent just a brief look on him. He pulled a chair to the table's side to be able to really reach it and climbed on it.

Sonic was sprawled on the table, gloves and shoes gones, a white bandage around his left upper arm. Electrodes had been attached to his skin on his chest and there were tubes sticking in his arms. The hedgehog lay still, eyes closed, face pale and sweaty.

Knuckles growled low in his throat and his pointed teeth ground against one another. With a quick jerk at them, he tore the tubes out of Sonic's arms, then removed the cables. Leaning over the hedgehog and softly patting his cheeks the echidna tried rousing his friend. "Sonic! Can you hear me?! Sonic!"

With a single shake of his head, Knuckles gave up on the attempt quickly. Whatever Sonic had been dosed with was stronger than Knuckles wanted to risk shaking him, especially since he looked more than sick at the moment anyway.

Reminding himself that the other human had run for backup, Knuckles quickly looked around, but found no other quick exit than the small air tunnel he had come through. He turned Sonic over and slipped his left arm under his unconscious friend, lifted him little gracefully or gently over his shoulder and carried him to the opening in the wall, shoving the motionless blue bundle into the ventilation tunnel.

Another hurried glance through the laboratory turned up Sonic's sneakers to be sitting on a small desk in a corner. They would have to go with the lack of socks and gloves, but Knuckles knew Sonic couldn't run without his shoes unless he wanted to burn his feet off from the friction, and it was possible they would need to run later. So he quickly dashed for the footwear, tossing it through the entrance to the air bent as well before crawling inside himself, pulling the grating close.

He quickly pulled Sonic's shoes over his bare feet before taking hold of the hedgehog's arm and pulling him along. It didn't seem like very appropriate treament, but it was all Knuckles could afford. They needed to find a hideout first; at best before someone got the idea their experiment had taken flight through this tunnel thingy.

* * *

A look outside showed only stars and the silhouette of Ark. Knuckles suspiciously scanned what he could see of Meteor Herd, but as it seemed no-one had followed them or was searching for Sonic here. Of course, that was what Knuckles had hoped for. They were inside one of the large blue storage boxes, outside the main colony, but still inside the bubble of air around it. He hoped they would be safe here for a while.

The echidna turned around and climbed over the metal containers stapled all over the place. Getting Sonic in here had not been easy, carrying him over his shoulder and disabled by his broken arm Knuckles had problems gliding and climbing. His attempts not getting spotted had not simplified matters.

In the back of the large container, well hidden behind all the smaller boxes, Knuckles found Sonic still like he'd left him a minute ago. The echidna had put his friend in what he thought to be recovery position upon arriving here; Sonic was still out and he was shivering. Space was cold, but they didn't have blankets of course, and lighting a fire to warm up didn't coincide with the concept of not getting spotted. Knuckles wasn't afraid of a confrontation with a few brainy people. He took on a few guys everyday, Sonic did too, but considering one of them was currently unconscious and the other had only one good arm, a fight might not go as smoothly as they were used to.

Sitting on top of a container, Knuckles watched the hedgehog. He had no idea what he could do for him. Knuckles was no doctor or something, but he wasn't totally at a loss when faced with sickness or injuries. He'd read through a lot of the books and scrolls to be found on Angel Island. You had to do something spending your time all alone. Still, the echidna had no idea what was actually wrong with Sonic, if it was bad, if those human scientists had poisoned him or something.

Knuckles really, really didn't like human scientists.

Poisoning was the first idea that had actually come up. They had clearly injected Sonic with something, to sedate him, or maybe just to try out how their new _experiment_ reacted to it. They had never seen a Mobian hedgehog before; Knuckles wasn't even able to judge if whatever substances they'd put into Sonic's body poisoned him it was an accident or happened on purpose.

Knuckles ground his teeth again. If the situation had been just slightly different - meaning if he didn't have a helpless hedgehog to keep watch over, had two functional arms and didn't need to worry about being randomly teleported through space and time without any way of controlling it – he would just carry out what he felt tempted to do: Go back in there and trash everything in that lab he could reach, including beating the living daylights out of these people cutting up his friend until one of them told him what exactly they'd done to him. What would probably result in more beating.

But the way things were now, all of those were angered fantasies. Scratch his stupid useless arm or the time travel thing, but he didn't want to risk leaving Sonic alone like this. The vivid imagination of coming back here and finding just a dead hedgehog wasn't very pleasant. Sonic might be an idiot sometimes and the way he tended to do things could annoy the heck out of the echidna, but he still was one of the very few friends Knuckles had, and although he didn't say or show that a lot, the echidna was well aware of the fact.

Taking another look at the so unusually still hedgehog, Knuckles sighed to himself. It was odd seeing Sonic not moving. He always moved. Even sitting down or standing, he tapped his feet, gestured around with his hands, looked everywhere around. Usually, it annoyed Knuckles to no end. Watching him not move at all wasn't a pleasant experience either, it was so totally uncharacteristic... But he didn't know how to help him. Without knowing the poison, you couldn't find an antidote. If it even was poison. It might as well be an allergic reaction. That would mean the stuff itself wasn't bad, but Sonic didn't take it nicely. Of course, the outcome was the same.

The guardian sighed. It looked like it was going to be a long night. Again. He missed the quiet, peaceful solitude of his island. He missed the Master Emerald, more than he could ever dream of putting into words. And heck, he missed Sonic's annoying wisecracks.


	17. Finders, Keepers?

After crossing dozens of halls full of giant gears and obscure machinery pestering her sensitive ears with noises in all sorts of hardly bearable pitches, the small thuds of her own footsteps on the concrete floor echoed strangely through the otherwise silent corridor. No robot was to be seen and the pale blue of overhead neon lights illuminated blank walls with just a few, equally blank doors.

Shadow was quiet, his hoverskates even making his movement a soundless flow. Since there was really just one way to take at the moment, also Tails and Omega remained quiet. Rouge knew it couldn't be far anymore.

"So, now that we're almost there…", she trailed. "How about you take ol' Rouge on a trip with your bike once the little fox boy pimped it up?"

The black hedgehog turned his head towards her, eyebrow quirked. "I don't do _trips_."

Rouge smirked, tracking him with a side-glance. "What do you call it then, heading out riding… _somewhere_ on this thing?" She paused at the question. "Where do you even go with it?"

Shadow snorted. "I –"

Whatever he was possibly going to reveal remained unspoken when the radio tucked into her belt gave out a clicking noise that spared Shadow the decision to say something or not, and instead Tails' voice sounded through light statics. "When you round the next corner, you should have the vault in front of you. It has a code lock, but I took the freedom opening it for you on remote already. Hope you don't mind."

Rouge pressed the speak button with a smirk. "I'm starting to consider hiring you the next time I head out to empty someone else's vault."

There was a short moment of silence before the receiver let out another click followed by Tails' words. "I'll take that as a compliment, but I guess I'll kindly decline the offer."

"At least the boy got manners," Rouge noticed towards her silent companion.

Shadow shrugged. The bat guessed he couldn't care less. Instead, the black hedgehog pointed forwards. "There it is."

Following his outstretched arm, Rouge took in the look of Eggman's vault. Before them, the corridor ended in a dead end, the wall in front of them fully claimed by what had to be one of the biggest vaults Rouge had seen in her life – and the treasure huntress par excellence had seen a lot. The door was about three meters high and two and a half wide, and due to it standing open she was able to see it was an impressive meter in thickness, reinforced steel supported by bulkheads as thick as her torso surely enough to withstand an explosion when fitted into their hold.

Behind that door, a room opened to them that was rather a warehouse than a vault. Rouge stopped at the threshold, with raised eyebrows looking around. "Doesn't quite look like a few nice treasure chests with gems and gold in them, does it?"

Shadow let out a chuckle, red eyes roaming the sight before them. "Eggman's definition of treasure isn't quite the same as yours, it seems."

Rouge took a few slow steps towards the closest of many shelves, pulling out a random box. Its front side was labelled with a long code of numbers and letters as well as a bar code that probably designated its content. She threw a look inside and reached to lift on of the objects in it out, turning it around. "Some kind of… circuit board," she announced, dropping it back into the box and putting the latter back into the shelf.

"This one's filled with stones," Shadow said, also having picked a box from the shelf.

"Gemstones?" Rouge's ears perked.

Shadow frowned down onto his box' content. "Not exactly. Just… stones. Greyish brown pieces of silicon dioxide, if you chose to get technical."

It was Rouge's turn to snort.

Shadow lifted one stone piece up. "There are symbols carved in it," he noticed with little interest, putting it back and looking around in the room, between a lot of boxes with codes on them and other shelves stuffed with smaller and bigger machines and random objects. "Tell Tails to find out what label is on the box with the Chaos Emerald."

A grimace on her face, Rouge nodded. "I was just about to suggest that."

* * *

It was gone. It had even taken along the shoes. Gerald stood and watched the paramedics carrying a stretcher out with the man that had still been in the room and apparently been knocked out by the alien creature upon its escape. The victim was lucky the spinal cord seemed unhurt. No matter how the mysterious hedgehog-like being had hit him, it was a lot stronger than it looked.

Still, all of this was a mystery to Gerald. Compared to the small weight, the hedgehog had been drugged with a dose strong enough to knock out the Biolizard, his prototype for the Ultimate Lifeform. An unsuccessful prototype, to be accurate. Although it was capable of utilizing the ancient powers he meant it to use, it couldn't survive without a large life support system. Something about its DNA wasn't able to survive on its own; it was a cripple. And it was way too big.

At least its immune system disabled almost all known poisons. Probably one day it would spawn a cure for Maria's illness.

Compared to the Biolizard, this little blue alien was so… _close_ to what he wanted to create. Fast, strong, apparently able to fight off strong drugs, its body storing energies… And, as the only explanation he had found for its presence aboard the Ark in lack of a space craft, it could apparently use this energy to teleport.

Hedgehogs… He would put a new focus on them in his work. Project Shadow… One day, it would be a success. The perfect life. Gerald knew it.

* * *

In spite of the code Tails had found rather quickly so that they knew what they were looking for, it took Shadow and Rouge an hour until they had worked themselves through all the labels, boxes and bizarre objects obscuring their path through the vault, and by the end of it both of them were in a rather foul mood. Rouge had not picked up a single item of interest to her and claimed several times already she was never, repeat: _never_ , going to raid Eggman's vault for her own pleasure.

The sight of a brightly glowing, fist-sized stone in a shade of light aquamarine made up for her troubles a little. She knew she wouldn't get to keep it. In fact, it would be easy just keeping it to herself. All she had to do was take it and get out of here. But no matter Rouge's limited sense for law, order and values like that, and despite her routine of working with anyone as long as it helped her own plans, there were standards she didn't drop. One of these was that once you made a deal, you'd stick with it. If you didn't, you'd soon see to nobody ever making any deals with you again, and on the long run for a spy, treasure huntress and jewel fanatic this situation wouldn't be fruitful.

Still, the twinkles of it, the way each facet shone a different light when she turned it drew her in. She wasn't gifted with chaos powers like Shadow, Sonic or Knuckles. To her, the gems held a magic of a different kind. The magic of unspoiled, pure, divine beauty.

"Call Tails and Omega," Shadow spoke up from her side. "Tell them they can get out of here. We're taking our own way out."

Rouge nodded and complied. She traced a fingertip along the Emerald's smooth edges, sighed, and handed it to Shadow.

The black hedgehog stepped close to her, slung his left arm around her waist, lifted the right hand holding the Emerald up and closed his eyes, shouting the magic words. "Chaos Control!"

* * *

"… Nhh…"

_Cold._

His body was filled with an odd sensation of pins and needles, and a few dull pains pounding from his head and a couple other places. His stomach felt a mixture of totally empty and nauseous, and his hazy brain couldn't come up with a reason why he would ever sleep in a position so uncomfortable. Not only that the ground was hard and every muscle in his body was stiff and aching, but it really was freaking cold, too.

"Ugh…"

If he'd come down with a flu or something, why wasn't he like… in his bed? With warm covers and pillows and someone getting him a warm tea?

The thinking just aggravated Sonic's headache, so he let it go, the fingers of his left hand resting under his cheek moving a little over the hard soil underneath him. Putting in some efforts, the hedgehog forced his eyelids up a notch, finding the uncomfortable ground to be a pale steel blue. Some more efforts were needed to pull his right hand out from under his waist, the little jolt when he finally succeeded causing him to flop onto his belly.

"Sonic?!" The shout of his name sounded excited and anxious at the same time, and before Sonic had been given the chance to process the fact he wasn't alone at wherever he might be, a large hand had slipped surprisingly gentle under his left shoulder and was turning him over.

Squinting up at his unexpected support still in a daze, Sonic found himself faced with a pair of dark violet eyes in a face framed by red dreadlocks. "Uh… Knux?"

The echidna emitted a sigh; the strain in his stance easing a little. "Good chaos, Sonic… Welcome back. How are you feeling?"

Sonic blinked, for a second contemplating the question. "How do you like 'awful'?"

Knuckles nodded, his eyes taking on a softer shade. "Sounds realistic at least. I thought you were gonna die on me here for a while."

The blue hedgehog stared up at his friend. "Die on you? Why would I do that?" He shifted a little on the floor, bracing his surprisingly bare hands against the cold metal in an attempt to sit up.

"Hey, easy." Still unfamiliarly careful with him, Knuckles helped him lean against some cubic steel box. It seemed they were surrounded by these things… There were a few wooden boxes, too, stapled between the metal ones. Some kind of odd storage area, perhaps...

Sonic was pulled out of his observations when the echidna decided to answer his question. "We are on Space Colony Ark. I don't know how, but you got yourself captured and the science guys around here mistook you for one of their research projects. I found you in a lab. They were probably getting ready to cut you in small handy pieces there. They'd injected you with some kind of stuff. When I got you out you looked like you were either poisoned or in some allergic shock of sorts."

Mouth slightly agape, Sonic struggled to follow Knuckles' words. "I… remember landing here. They chased me into a dead end. There was this weird smoke…" He lifted his hand to slowly massage his aching head.

"Uh-huh… Maybe a narcotic gas or something," Knuckles said, but seemed to begin noticing he was demanding too much of Sonic at once. "It's not so important now. We made it to Meteor Herd; I think we're safe here for a while. It might be the best you try get some more rest. You're still looking quite under the weather. It's not that we could get off this space station anyway." He stood up, gesturing past the pile of containers. "I'm gonna have a watch, okay?"

Sonic nodded groggily, watching the red echidna turn and start climbing up the boxes. "Knuckles?"

"Yes?" The Emerald guardian looked over his shoulder.

"Thank you."

A brief smirk darted over Knuckles' face, then he nodded, and vanished over the top of the box pile.

* * *

Archibald jumped from his chair where he'd been busy drawing a star map on a blank sheet of paper from memory when Tails bolted into the laboratory. "Do you have it?!"

Dropping into the first best seat, out of breath from hurrying up the long flight of stairs, the two-tailed fox still held the glowing gemstone up in triumph. "Yes," he gasped out.

His raccoon friend spent little time with small talk; he snatched the Chaos Emerald from Tails' hand, placing it into the small socket solely designed for that purpose. He righted his glasses as he leaned close to the screen in front of him, so close Tails wondered if he could still read anything at all with his nose almost touching it. For a moment the fox watched the physicist staring at his machines as if that'd make them work faster, then he almost jumped as Archibald shot back upright, throwing both arms up like an athlete having won the Olympics. "Eureka!"

Tails sat and stared at the picture before him, at the slim, tall yellow raccoon with the oversized glasses in his white coat posing like a miniature Robotnik, just spare the moustache and insane laughter, in the middle of a room that looked as if a few dozen vandals had thrown a nerd party, empty cardboard boxes that might have contained food spread out between wires, cables and computer equipment. It was almost comical.

"It fits?", he finally got out.

"Like ten rings into a capsule." Archibald grinned, and Tails couldn't help but join him as he fell back into the chair for a short breather, a short moment of relief.

"Thank Chaos…" He didn't really know what he would have done if it didn't fit.

A glimpse of seriousness returned to Archibald's face, the words rushing out of him now, getting faster with every syllable. "There's still a lot of work to do. In fact, I already started. Couldn't sit around doing nothing for almost two days, could I? So, I've been crawling into a few storage rooms and unearthed some old equipment, y'know? It's not the best there is, but I tested the cables with ring energy and they transfer it smoothly. Used your Tornado for the test, then thought we'd need another motor, so I constructed one from my old microwave and the spectrometer in the observatory. Works like a jam, but I'm not too sure where to put the energy once I sucked it in there and –"

"Stop!"

The raccoon dropped his so far excitedly gesturing hands, gazing at the young fox open-mouthedly. "What?"

"Three things," Tails started. "Firstly: Don't speak faster than Sonic runs. Ever. Secondly: Breathe while you speak; I don't know what I'd do if you suffocated on me here. Thirdly: _WHAT_ did you do?"

For another few second the professor just stared at Tails, then a grin curved his lips. "I've been thinking, while you were gone," he said, not before having taken the breath he'd been advised taking. "By the way, did it go okay? You didn't seem so sure when you left."

Tails shrugged. "It went better than I expected. Pretty much perfect if you look past the black hedgehogs in genocide moods and the robots with anger problems. And I got myself an appointment as a motorcycle mechanic." Archibald raised an eyebrow, already opening his mouth to ask, but Tails shook his head. "Later. Your thinking?"

"Ah yes, my thinking." The raccoon, most surprisingly, actually took a short break before continuing. "We have a problem, Tails."

Eyes widening, the fox shot a glance over at the Chaos Emerald. "But we got the right one you said and –"

"That's not the problem." Archibald leaned against the edge of a table, his bushy striped tail gently waving at his side. "Our little installation here" – he gestured around the lab – "will quite certainly do what we designed it for now that we got the correct Emerald. That means, at the peak of their fields' intensity it'll draw the then initiating jump to here, or more precisely, to there." He pointed at the giant metal ring on the floor. "So, if we're doing everything right, our lost friends should appear among us again."

"Yeah…?" Tails nodded, just to signal he'd followed so far. He still didn't know what the professor was getting at, or rather, trying to get at.

"Now, the problem is… what happens then?" Archibald looked at Tails.

"Then… we have Sonic and Knuckles back…?", the fox trailed.

"Yes." Archibald nodded gravely. "But are we going to _keep_ them?"

Silence filled the room as the raccoon's words sank in. "You mean…" Tails blinked, his twin tails powerlessly falling to the side with a small thud against the chair's wood.

"Like every natural oscillation," Archibald continued in a slow speech that was almost out of character, "over time it will recede in intensity. There is radiation, the reason we can track them down, and where there is radiation, a system is losing its energy to the outside world. Everything that emits energy, everything that radiates, will grow weaker." He paused, looking at Tails. "The energy deposit in Sonic and Knuckles, the reason for the whole mess, is decreasing in amount as we speak. Has done so since the beginning. In a while, there won't be enough energy left to initiate another chaos time travel. So, scientifically speaking, the problem will terminate itself."

Tails was quiet, chewing his bottom lip. "Then… if we don't get them back in time, we never will?"

Another moment of dead silence heavily hung in the room before the raccoon nodded.

"When will it be… too late?", Tails forced himself to ask.

"I don't know for sure. Each jump 'consumes' energy, but never the same amount so far. Heck, we're speaking about chaos energy. You can't exactly pinpoint it." He shrugged, for a moment the helplessness Tails felt reflecting also in the raccoon's features. "Two times, three, maybe four. I can't say, Tails."

The little fox nodded silently.

"And that is the problem. When we get them back at the next teleport in" – Archibald turned to the screen with the timer and graphs and back to Tails after a short glance on it – "a little more than two hours, we can almost be sure it'll happen again and I don't know if it's good to try the same thing all over again. We might just be unlucky and they're gone when we can't get them back anymore."

"What if…" Tails stared down on his hands. "What if we wait until we know they won't be dragged around time and space again?"

Archibald vigorously shook his head. "I considered this, but it's too risky. If we could say exactly what's going on, okay. But we can't. I won't go play Russian roulette with your friends based on a wild guess."

Tails sighed. "It's not that I really considered it… Then what do we do?"

"That's what I was asking myself when you were gone raiding vaults." The yellow raccoon flashed a brief smile but Tails didn't smile back. "My idea is simple. What we are dealing with is chaos energy. A distorted, strange form of it, but the basic properties fit. We don't only know how to describe chaos energy on relative terms, but we also know, in certain restrictions, how to use it. Your plane does."

Blinking a few times, Tails rubbed the back of his head. "The Tornado?"

"Yes. It runs on rings."

"And on Chaos Emeralds, occasionally."

"All the better." Archibald tilted his head. "So, if we can take the energy out of golden rings that are nothing but chaos energy, and transfer this energy into you plane's engine, or store it in a capsule … Why shouldn't the same thing work with our persistent time energy?"

"You mean…" Tails bit his lip, then suddenly grinned, his namesakes returning to twirl at his side. "Sonic and Knuckles are the rings. Or the capsule. Whatever. And all we have to do is transferring the energy from them to… something else."

"That's the idea, my friend."

"And then we –" Tails stopped, glanced the raccoon up and down, and grinned again. "You built a ring-capsule-like thing from your microwave?"

"No." Archibald chuckled. "I built the transferring device from it."

Tails giggled. "See who calls himself a theorist."

"Getting used to things, aren't I?" The scientist laughed. "On to work, then, shall we?"

Quickly standing from his chair, Tails nodded. "It's not that we could afford losing any time."

* * *

Sonic awoke curled up in a corner, but although it had certainly not been the best sleep he'd ever had, it had clearly done him some good. Sitting up and carefully stretching to get rid of the sleepy stiffness, he allowed himself an unabashed yawn. Crawling to his feet, he found his knees a little wobbly still, but he managed the way over the boxes.

He spotted Knuckles sitting on a wooden container close to the exit, half hidden from the outside by another one. The echidna had been peering past it, but hearing the noises Sonic made going across the mount of boxes, he turned around.

"Hey there, Knuckles," Sonic said, slipping down to sit on top a container next to the echidna.

Knuckles smiled. "Hey. Good to see you up. How'd you sleep?"

"I can't say it's been dreamy or like on clouds, but it'll do. How long have you been sitting here?"

"There's no sun outside." Knuckles shrugged. "Must have been a few hours."

"I guess." Sonic nodded. "I was pretty much dead on my feet."

Knuckles shot him a glance. "You weren't even on your feet, if you allow me to notice."

Sonic grunted, but there was little feeling behind it. "You know, I'm glad I'm back on them now."

A rare playful grin appeared on Knuckles' face. "You're sitting on a box, hedgehog."

"Yes." Sonic chuckled. "So, what about you?"

Knuckles looked down as if to confirm he was guilty of the same thing. "Dang."

Sonic laughed, holding his belly. "My damn stomach hurts," he noticed out of the blue. Cocking a brow, Knuckles looked worried again. "It could just be it's hungry, though," Sonic added, thoughtfully running his hand over his stomach.

The echidna huffed a sigh of relief. "Well, if it's that, it's a good sign. You're usually always hungry."

Sonic looked back up at him. "You should ask Tails about it. He says it's because of my super fast meta-something burning more calories faster than anybody else's."

Knuckles didn't answer. He blinked, his good hand moving to rub his forehead. "Sonic? Do you feel this?"

The blue hedgehog blinked slowly as well. Knuckles was right. His head was starting to hurt and he was beginning to tingle all over. "Ugh… Well, I can't say I liked this place a lot anyway…" A white light was starting to eat away his vision when he felt a strong grip closing around his arm. Then there was just bright light. And a second later, it was swallowed up by dark nothingness.

* * *

They didn't manage to get ready before the two hours ran out. Too much time had been consumed by studying the basic theories behind constructing ring capsules, then much more by modifying the system to fit their case.

When the timer hit zero and a small alarm light started blinking, Tails looked up from his data sheet to stare numbly at the screen, knowing yet another attempt had passed, another chance was untaken.

For a moment he gazed into space, wondering what might be happening to his friends now. Where they would land now, where they had come from, if they were okay. His mind, stressed out by work and worry, didn't come up with any nice ideas and he tried to shake off the question what would be if Sonic or Knuckles dropped out of subspace or hyperspace or time or whatever was the medium of transport for a Chaos Control and landed in the middle of the ocean, over an active volcano, inside a concrete wall or somewhere in outer space.

"Don't think about that…", he mumbled quietly. "Knowing Sonic, they drop down on a tropical beach with palmtrees and fine white sand next to a chilli dog stand and take a nap in the sun…" He kept repeating the sentence in his mind, like a mantra, trying to lull himself into believing it. If only it'd work…

He was glad when Archibald asked him to pass over the work sheet, but it took some time to order his thoughts again. _Just… be okay, guys. Please…_


	18. Forever

For a moment Knuckles felt like tumbling head over heels again. It was starting to become almost a familiar sensation. Through the bright haze in his head he tried to focus on keeping a hold of Sonic. He wanted to try if they could avoid having to search for each other all the time that way. It would spare them a lot of trouble.

The first thing he felt after the surreal white weightlessness was a cold and sharp stroke of wind; the blink of an eye later he landed surprisingly softly. Quickly shaking his head and squinting around, the echidna found he'd dropped into a big snowdrift.

He struggled to his feet and out of the white powder, looking at Sonic. He still held his forearm, so his little experiment had actually worked out. The fact he could just pull the hedgehog around wasn't as reassuring.

Knuckles dropped to his knees next to where he was now sprawled on the snowy ground after Knuckles let go of him. "Sonic?" Thankfully, this time a few shakes got the blue hedgehog's eyes fluttering open.

"Hey, what's going on?" Sonic was already sitting, gaping at the snow around as if he'd never seen the white stuff before.

"We got chaos time travelled again I guess. You kinda zoned out or whatever for a moment there." Knuckles didn't want to say 'fainted' or anything of the sort, the idea of lugging an unresponsive Sonic around the space colony wondering if he was dying or not still felt a tad too fresh and uncomfortable to him. Instead, he offered the hedgehog his hand to help him to his feet. "You're all good now?"

Sonic nodded, knocking snow out of his fur. "Been better, but I guess I'll be fine." He threw a look around. "Okay… Where in the world are we?"

"Don't ask me, hedgehog," Knuckles snapped. This whole being-teleported-around thing was more than starting to pull on his nerves. "Do I look as if I had any idea?"

"Hey, chill it, will ya?" Sonic folded his arms. "It's not like this was all my fault."

Tilting his head, Knuckles looked at him for a moment. "Fine," he sighed. "No offence."

Sonic nodded, looking around again. "Okay then… Either, we've landed at the North Pole, or in the middle of an ice age, or it's just winter at… wherever we are here."

Knuckles nodded. "Wonderful."

* * *

"What's this?"

Already upon his arrival, Robotnik noticed there was something totally not right. Something was different. It was as if the sanctuary had been breached. Someone had been here.

The doctor quickly opened up the base's security protocols. They listed one unidentified access to his computer data base during his absence and a couple of destroyed robot guards. And the records told Robotnik the vault had been opened.

He quickly made his way through the base's corridors. When he reached the vault, the door stood wide open, proving his worries right. Hastily he entered the vault, scanning through the various boxes and shelves. On first look, he couldn't find anything missing or destroyed. Until he found one empty container.

"The Chaos Emerald…" Robotnik stared down onto the empty box that had contained the mysterious powerful gemstone.

Oh well, if he was being honest, it could have been worse. If that one Chaos Emerald really was the only thing missing, he'd gotten out of things quite nicely. His plan didn't require the Emerald in any way, and every single object in this vault room was of higher importance than this stone. With a Chaos Emerald, you always had to expect you wouldn't get to keep it for long. Too many people were after the powerful jewels, and adding to that came their own tendency to wrap randomly to another place, or one of the pocket dimensions commonly refered to as 'Special Zones'. Losing an Emerald was something that surely didn't count as positive news, but it wasn't uncommon. Still, he was curious to know who had been his uninvited visitor. The guy owed him a couple of robots…

A few hours and scans of various video recordings later, Robotnik knew the guy had been a girl really. To be accurate, Rouge the Bat, although not on her own, but accompanied by Shadow, that disloyal tin can of an E-series robot, and Tails. The latter was a surprise, even more so since his best pal Sonic wasn't around. What left the interesting question what Tails was doing in this unusual company.

At least it explained why only the Chaos Emerald was gone. Sonic or someone else would have probably destroyed more things than a few robots. Rouge the bat on the other hand, although she had not come alone, was always after gemstones.

Robotnik shrugged to himself, terminating the protocols. He would get a hand on another Emerald sooner or later. Right now, he didn't need it. After all, his new prototype was almost completed, and it didn't need an Emerald to run. That should prove an advantage, right?

* * *

A few snowflakes were falling from a dark blue sky, gently twirling around in short gusts of cold winds ripping through the hills. Here and there, small groups of fir trees stuck out of the deep snow as rare dots of dark green powdered in pristine whiteness, icicles hanging from the branches glazing in the pale light that seemed to come from all around rather than the sky above, reflected by the field of snow.

Sonic had folded his arms across his chest, his bare fingers tucked under his armpits. By now the cold had done a fine job chasing off the remaining muzziness and he felt wide awake.

Knuckles was walking half a meter in front of him, pushing forwards through the snow that sometime went up to their chests. At the moment Sonic was lucky to be walking in the half-free path Knuckles left, but the hedgehog planned on taking turns. A few minutes and they'd switch positions for a while.

"If you happen to see something that looks like a five-star hotel offering hot drinks, just shout, okay?" Sonic was shivering so badly he could actually hear his teeth chatter as he spoke.

Knuckles stopped and turned over his shoulder. "Well, I don't think I see your hotel, but there's a big valley in front of us. And there are lights down there."

Sonic caught up with him, standing on his toes to be able to look past the echidna. "Lights like in city lights?" The idea seemed ridiculously welcoming to him.

"Uh, there's quite a lot of them at least." Noticing Sonic's struggle, Knuckles leaned to the side a little, allowing the hedgehog a better view.

In front of them, the hills gently lowered into a wide valley. At its base, still rather far in the distance, Sonic could now see a lot of lights. Window lights. "There gotta be a lot of houses," he exclaimed excitedly. "I don't see any lights from cars or roads, though."

"Knowing our luck we're probably at a place and time where the light still comes from oil lamps," Knuckles noticed.

"Well, I'd give a year's ration of chilli dogs for a blank room with just an oil lamp and a fire place," Sonic gave back. "I'm freezing my tail off."

"If your shivering gets any worse, I'll get into trouble understanding what you're saying," the red echidna remarked.

Sonic managed a weak grin. "Now tell me you're not cold. I'm not the only one who's shivering."

"Course not. We better get going before our feet start freezing on the ground and we're stuck here…" The Emerald guardian turned around again, but stopped after a few steps again, turning back to Sonic. "Looks like we're not the only ones out in this terrible weather." He pointed his good arm down the gentle slope in front of them.

It took Sonic a few seconds of searching until he as well spotted the movement of a small form coming up the hill side. "Maybe this guy can tell us how things are down there."

Knuckles nodded. "If he keeps his direction, we're gonna meet anyway."

Looking past Knuckles as they set off walking again, Sonic studied the stranger. Some sort of cape was pulled around his body that concealed everything but his face, the apparently thick blowing in the winds. "He's doing quite a pace," the hedgehog noticed.

"Probably wants to get somewhere before the next snowstorm," Knuckles guessed.

It took just a few minutes until they were standing face to face with the stranger. From under his hood, the face of an elderly echidna was looking at them, the look out of black eyes piercing and uncomfortable as it wandered over the two friends.

Sonic cleared his throat. "Hey there. Are you coming from this town?"

For a second surprise slipped over the echidna's face, then it froze back into the stoic stare he'd held before. "Yes." His voice was deep, a lot deeper than Knuckles' even, and something about hearing it made Sonic feel even colder than before.

"How are things in the town?", Knuckles asked after a short moment of irritated silence. "We were trying to find shelter from the cold there."

"The Nocturnals have only a short time left in this world. Their fate has been decided." With the last word, Sonic could have sworn the elder's eyes had glowed for the briefest of instants, but after he blinked they looked just black, what was weird enough on its own. Hardly anyone has really pitch black eyes. Usually they're a very dark brown or grey, even if they appear black at first. These ones really were black. Deep, abysmal black. Hollow, and yet piercing.

Sonic shivered. "Oh, uh… and that means?", he asked, unsuccessfully trying to make sense of the cryptic statement.

The old echidna's black eyes drilled into Sonic's greens. "This world will forget them soon enough. Don't bother."

"Okay, we'll just get going, y'know. We want to get down there before we're frozen solid…" Sonic chuckled awkwardly. Something about this weird guy was making him nervous and he liked neither the spooky echidna nor the picking up cold wind.

"Be going," the elder said, though it sounded more like a command, his deep voice reminding Sonic of the distant rolling of thunder, and somehow he wouldn't be too surprised if the black eyes could shoot bolts of lightening.

The blue hedgehog was walking past the spooky stranger when Knuckles spoke up again, addressing the weird guy. "I was surprised you speak our language."

"I understand any words ever said."

"Uh… fine." Knuckles sounded insecure as well now. "And what's your name, wise man?"

The elder cleared his throat. "I am known as _Argus_." He pushed past Knuckles and walked off.

Sonic shook his head, also walking again, but towards the distant town. "Wow, sure was weird, wasn't he?"

"Yeah…", Knuckles trailed, looking after the elder.

A couple of moments they pushed through the deep snow silently, and when Sonic turned over his shoulder to look after the strange echidna again, he was gone, his footprints ending in a field of untouched snow. It was as if he had been swallowed up by the winter night.

* * *

They had closed in on the city enough to allow Sonic, now being the first in line, to make out the shapes of a skyline blurred by the snowfall. The sky above had darkened another bit, and the amount of snowflakes was slowly, but surely increasing. In spite of his muscles telling him precisely how little a cold body liked any form of exercise, Sonic had picked up the pace. The lights were coming nearer, mocking the freezing hedgehog with their orange glow that spoke of the warmth in the houses.

"That weird old guy is crazy leaving this place on purpose just to get out into this giant fridge," Sonic noticed, throwing a glance back at Knuckles. "What was his name again?"

His red friend looked perplex for a second, scratching his head. "Don't remember. Something that begins with a vowel… Or didn't it?"

Sonic shrugged, turning back to the deep snow in front of him. It was a little more shallow here in the valley than between the hills, reaching up to slightly below his hips. The front side of his legs was by now so much covered with snow it was hard to tell the fur there was indeed the same colour as the rest of him. "No idea. I guess my brain is frozen already… but he sure was weird. Not the type of guy you want to meet in a dark, lonely place."

A small chuckle sounded from the echidna behind him. "You're not gonna get nightmares now, okay?"

Sonic turned around again and stuck out his tongue. "I'm older than five, you know?"

"Well, judging from your behaviour sometimes…" Knuckles grinned. "I better not take bets."

Sonic laughed. The banter was relaxing no matter the uncomfortable surroundings. "You better shut your big mouth before I forget how cold I am and show you."

"I have a big mouth?" Knuckles snorted, but there was a laugh hiding beneath it. "Look who's talking. Knowing the size of yours, it's no surprise you can put away more chilli dogs than someone twice your size…"

Sonic groaned. "Don't you speak about food. I'm so hungry I'm sick… and just thinking about anything food makes it worse…"

"Oh." Knuckles sounded taken aback. "But I'm hungry, too," he admitted then.

"Shut up," Sonic grumbled. He didn't want to stomp through tons of snow anymore. He wanted someplace warm, he wanted a warm meal, and he wanted a bed. Now. Did he really make too much demands with just that?

To Sonic's surprise, Knuckles actually was quiet, and for another minute they made their way through the snow in utter silence. Sonic looked up towards the city again and stopped so suddenly Knuckles walked right into him.

"Hey!"

"Knuckles, look…" Sonic pointed at the skyline, by now close enough to make out the single buildings forming it even through the falling snowflakes. From between the houses, a purple glow was radiating towards the sky, hanging over the city like a coat, shimmering between pink and dark violet.

"What the…?" When Sonic shot a glance at his friend, Knuckles stared openmouthedly at the weird sight. "Is that good..?"

The blue hedgehog shrugged, warily watching the bizarre purple light in the winter night. "It's purple. And it glows. Almost everything I ever encountered that glows purple or pink or something like that was trying to kill me, or someone else."

"Way to cheer me up…", Knuckles muttered almost under his breath.

For another few moments the two friends stared at the glowy stuff over the city. Slowly it was concentrating at one spot, occupying an ever smaller space but the light growing in intensity as it did. When it seemed to be just a bright, pinkish white star standing over the town, a sound like thunder rolled through the cold air, rumbling the ground beneath their feet like a distant earthquake. The thunder sound was just fading in the snowed-in environment when the star shone brighter than a sun for a tiny moment. Everything seemed to stand still, and then it exploded.

Within a single instant the small star had blown itself up to a glowing sphere of purple, still illuminating the winter night in surreal lighting. It came into touch with the first top of a building, swallowing it up. It soon reached more of the houses, the expansion rates growing ever faster.

"Oh-oh…" Sonic threw a look around. Whatever this purple thing was, it was coming closer, and it was at least as hungry as he was himself.

"This isn't looking good…", Knuckles noticed, uneasily hopping between his left and right foot, and it wasn't just to chase off the cold.

"No, this is looking like a bunch of trouble," Sonic agreed. "I hate to suggest it, but we should run."

Knuckles nodded. "For once, this sounds like a great plan…"

The purple sphere of _something_ had now covered most of the city and was spreading into the snowy fields around it, ever growing, and ever growing faster.

Sonic span around. "And we'll have to do it fast!"

Knuckles had already reacted and was running back the way they had come. Sonic would have picked the same, after all there was already something resembling a path and it would be the way of least resistance… and that meant the one you could run on the fastest.

Following suit behind the echidna, Sonic threw short looks back. The glow of doom didn't seem intend on slowing down, or disappearing. Instead, it seemed fond of catching up with them.

"Knux! Faster!"

"It's not that – this stuff was – great to run on," Knuckles huffed, sounding annoyed… and nervous.

Sonic had to agree with him there; the deep snow was a crappy soil for running on. It slowed you down, your feet sank deep into it, it was slippery and the question wasn't really _if_ you would sprain an ankle or some other joint, but _when_.

Still, the hedgehog pushed himself, taking over his friend though the deeper snow next to the path. "Want a ride?!"

Although it was a known fact Knuckles didn't really appreciate being pulled along by the running hedgehog, he didn't hesitate to get a firm grip around Sonic's outstretched arm. The hedgehog locked his fingers around Knuckles' wrist, stumbled back into the path, and accelerated.

He would have almost fallen over already then, the half compressed snow beneath his sneakers slipping backwards under his weight and the force of the sudden jolt. Sonic cursed, bit his lip and stumbled another few steps until he regained his balance and was able to speed up.

The trouble a cold body had with exercise came back to him with full force, making him painfully aware of the stiffness in his cold muscles that protested against every constriction with a long-drawn sting. Sucking the cold air into his needy lungs, he felt as if icy water was running down his throat, attempting to freeze him from the inside out.

If you had time to adapt to it, do a slow warm up and get used to the cold, a run like that could be refreshing. The way it was now, Sonic wasn't sure how long he would be able to take it. Given the pain every step caused, it was a mere question of time when he'd pull a muscle like that. And trip them over. And get swallowed up by this glowing whatsoever.

Now that he was running back up the hill on it, Sonic noticed with confusion how much they had gone a slalom track. On the way down, it had seemed like a straight way to him, now he wished it would have been a straight line, and not the zigzag it actually was.

The way got even curvier when it reached the edge of the big valley and started going around the smaller hills. Quite often when it got into a deeper spot, drifting snow had already covered it again and the route was hard to see in the dim light at neck-break speed.

Sonic shot a short glance back and wished he hadn't. The purple sphere had turned into was seemed a sky-high barrier, rushing after them. Ten meters to spare, maybe less. The blue hedgehog ground his teeth, ignoring the concept of broken joints and bones, trying to tickle a little more speed out of his protesting body. But he was tired, he was cold, he was hurting, he was hungry, and there wasn't much left for an extra burst of speed.

The hedgehog kept going anyway, stubbornly refraining from giving up. He looked back again. Knuckles still firmly held around his arm, watching the explosion thing behind them. For a short, bizarre moment Sonic noticed how lucky they were Knuckles was so stream-lined and could glide on the wind of the speed-run, then he shoved the thought away.

The hedgehog rounded another snowy hill, another group of fir trees, threw another look behind himself. The purple wall was growing closer, covering the first of the fir trees, then the next few – and vanished. Sonic stared at the dark, empty space that had been glowing just the heartbeat before, tried to make sense of it – and was flung forwards as his feet got stuck in a patch of deeper snow.

He landed face-first in the cold, white powder, and almost in the same moment Knuckles landed on top of him, giving a muffled sound of discomfort. The crash knocked the wind out of Sonic and he coughed when he gasped in a good deal of snow. Knuckles scrambled off him just in time so Sonic could roll to his back. Then he just lay there, panting, in the middle of a field of snow, and the fresh snowflakes slowly started to settle on his body.

Sonic wasn't sure how long he had been lying like that when Knuckles shook him, calling his name and it didn't sound overly friendly. The hedgehog moaned. "No." He wasn't quite sure what Knuckles wanted, but he didn't care.

"That's not an option. Stand up." The echidna seemed not in a joking mood at the moment, but that was also something Sonic didn't really care about.

"No...", he repeated. He was clear on that one. He didn't care if the ground was a little cold here… _everything_ was cold here; and lying in the almost fluffy, white stuff was so much better than standing… or running… or anything else…

"Soniiiic…" There was something close to threatening in Knuckles' tone.

"No…" Sonic opened his eyes just in time to see Knuckles being hunkered at his side, then the echidna's left hand grabbed around his ribcage, just below his arm, and Sonic suddenly noticed how big his hand was. And how much stronger its owner was than him.

The force of the hold almost hurt when Knuckles lifted him up with as much ease as if he weighted absolutely nothing, letting him know he didn't really need two functional arms to manhandle him without major trouble.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?", Sonic complained when he was put on his feet.

"Saving your life, hedgehog." Knuckles' answer came out simple and without much definable feeling behind it. "I thought it'd be fair returning the favour." He nodded at the space behind them, and Sonic slowly turned from him to look at where they had come from.

Around them, the hills were still covered in pristine snow. The nearest firs still wore their coat of ice, but behind them, nothing looked like winter anymore. The rest of the trees were gone without a splinter of wood or a piece of bark left. No needles, no nothing. The ground was blank; free of snow or grass that might have been beneath it. Just a plain of brownish ground. As if everything spare this very ground had… disappeared.

Sonic blinked, struggling to comprehend what he saw. The still falling snow was slowly starting to cover the blank ground again, the brown colour blurring under a thin, but growing white blanket. "Where'd it all go…?", Sonic mumbled, shaking his head.

"No idea. Followed our example and teleported to random times and places. Whatever." Knuckles' voice carried a tone of defeat.

Sonic tried to oppress a yawn with limited success. He didn't want to yawn; it really didn't feel anything like appropriate in this situation, but couldn't really avoid it.

Knuckles didn't let through if he had noticed it anyway, instead he turned from the unreal empty space and his amethyst eyes roamed the snow-covered hills. "We have to keep going… and I don't really think we'll find anything like shelter there." He yanked his thumb over his shoulder, but something about him still seemed powerless. "If there was something, it's gone now… Chaos hates us."

Sonic nodded quietly. The concept didn't sound so outworldish any more. The world hated them. Or maybe chaos hated them. Whatever. They were mightily screwed, anyway.

When Knuckles slowly started walking deeper into a snowy landscape that looked here exactly like a few kilometres away, Sonic just tailed him, setting one foot in front of the other, slowly freezing with each second that passed.

* * *

The lab was a mess, floor covered in wires, relays and machinery. Left of where Tails sat on a small, free space atop a table, dangling his legs and tails, a capacitor sat on the ground in the middle of the chaotic wiring, giving out a soft, steady humming noise. Maybe it was because it was so quiet around, but to Tails the sound felt over persistent.

Across of him, the Chaos Emerald sat in its socket, its gentle light outstanding between the blinking of control lamps and data rushing over computer screens in the background. Tails stared into the light blue glow, and at the timer on the screen behind it.

Watching the seconds run down. One by one. Incredibly fast, and yet he wished they'd go faster. At least, a part of him wished the waiting would end, right now and here, just to be able to _do_ something. But another part was growing more and more anxious as he watched the timer, watched second by second slip out of his grip.

Suddenly, as he sat and stared into space, he could almost hear Omochao's annoying, pestering voice in his head, but there was a gloating undertone in it. _Watch the hourglass… doors close when time is up._ Ironically, that about described it. There was little difference between watching the sand run down in an hourglass or staring at a digital timer showing an ever decreasing amount of time left.

And yet, there was a basic difference Tails was bitterly aware of. When the door activated by the mysterious hourglasses in that old pyramid Eggman had once used as a hideout closed again, you could go back your way and try again. For his door, if you wanted to call it that, there was just this one attempt. No 'try again from the beginning'. Once the fields' intensity got too low to register, too low to initiate the jump through time and space, there would be no starting over again.

Tails stared at the timer, watching grain of sand by grain of sand, second by second rushing away. Ready to close the door…

Forever.


	19. Blizzards And Peaks

The winds had increased to what Knuckles dared to call the beginning of a storm. He had lowered his head into it, his bad arm tightly pressed to his body. As at least one single thing to register on the very short list of positive things, in the past what Knuckles guessed was about a day it had stopped hurting too badly. He hardly felt it any more, spare the times when he hit it or moved in a way that wasn't good for it. Probably it was really healing. He wasn't even sure if he knew how that felt, without some magical Master Emerald powers involved.

But the fact his injury was getting better apparently was about the only _good_ thing Knuckles could think of at the moment. His left arm was slung around Sonic's waist. It had been the only way to keep the hedgehog up and going. Head down, ears and quills drooping, shivering even worse than the echidna himself, Sonic looked probably more spent than Knuckles had ever seen him before… and by now his fur wasn't the only thing that was blue on him.

Neither of them had spoken in a long time, and Knuckles was just too aware of the fact they were done for if they wouldn't find some way out of this snow storm soon. He was shocked when he found he almost wished another of those weird time travel events would get them. No matter where it would drop them, it seriously couldn't get much worse, could it?

Another ten minutes or hours or whatever passed and Knuckles felt more and more as if he was really carrying Sonic, and he didn't have the strength for that left. Or maybe he had… He wouldn't leave him to die in the snow, not after everything that had been. If anyone would have told him a few years ago he would value another person as much as he valued the Master Emerald, he would have laughed. But he had reached that point, with Sonic, and also with Tails.

Tails… If the little flying genius had any great rescue plan up his sleeve, this was the moment to get it started…

But nothing like it happened. No biplane or space ship or weird looking device landed in the snow… and if one had, the guardian wasn't sure if he wouldn't put it away as hallucinations.

In fact, he almost did put it away as a product of a clouded mind when he walked into something solid. For a moment he just pushed against it, somewhat expecting it to be not real and just disappear, but it stayed, not really giving in. It reached to about the height of his hips and Knuckles guessed it was wood. Nerves numbed by the cold, it could have been anything else as well, though.

He shook his head, squinting through the snowfall around. There was something in the middle of it that wasn't white ice crystals. Something higher than he was tall; a dark shape that was too rectangular to be of natural origin.

Knuckles stiffly climbed over the thing in his way, forcing Sonic along with him. There came little protest; the hedgehog was long beyond the point of caring what was going on. That he was still somewhat walking was more automatism than anything else.

Pushing through some more untouched, deep snow Knuckles got them closer to the not-made-of-snow object, inward relief flooding him when the shape peeled out of the snowfall to become a small, wooden house. Or hut. Or stable. Or whatever. Something with a roof. Something that wouldn't have snow and wind inside. That was all that mattered to Knuckles right now.

The little building didn't seem to have any windows. The walls were made of thick, complete stems; the constructors had not even bothered removing the bark when fitting together the rude building. The single door was locked with a strong looking piece of wood in front of it.

"Can you open it?", Knuckles asked his companion, having all of his own hands full. Well, one out of service and the other one keeping a hedgehog upright.

Sonic looked at him, and just one look into the glassy green eyes told Knuckles it would be a surprise if the hedgehog even understood the question. He sighed, shoving his blue friend against the wooden wall, and pulled his arm free.

The lock sat tight in its place and refrained to move when Knuckles yanked at it. Snow and ice had settled in the small gaps between the walls and the piece of wood, gluing them together. The echidna slipped to his knees, pushing under it with his shoulder. The wood let out a few protesting noises, then it jolted a little. Knuckles stood back up, tearing at it again, and a small smile managed the way to his face when he finally pulled it free. He leaned it against the wall aside the door and opened the it.

Inside it was even darker than in the stormy night outside, and you could make out just a few shapes in the dim lighting. Most of the inside of the hut seemed filled with a heap of… some kind of stuff. It was the smell that hit his nostrils a few seconds later that told Knuckles was the stuff was.

It smelled of hay.

The guardian gripped Sonic's arm and pulled the hedgehog into the hut, pulling the door close behind them. It instantly turned even darker, but also remarkably warmer. Slowly and carefully to avoid tripping over something in the dim light, Knuckles moved closer to the heap of hay. When he stepped into it, his feet immediately sank into it up to his ankles.

He shoved Sonic up the pile of hay until he thought they had reached the top of it. Warmth always goes to the top of something, everybody knew that. Next to him, Sonic stumbled over his own feet and fell into the hay. Knuckles dropped down next to him, distractedly registering the warmth seeping out of the rather soft, dry stuff.

"If you need to pass out, now I'll let you," he noticed tiredly. He didn't receive an answer and when he looked Sonic had tucked into a ball, already half buried in hay. "Not so stupid, are you?", Knuckles mused, digging his hand into the hay. The slightly deeper layers of it were even warmer than the top and he crawled into it.

Just a few seconds later, the only thing of Knuckles that looked out of the warm hay was his head. For a moment he felt the cold slowly draining from his body, then sleep claimed him as well.

* * *

If someone would have been present to see it, they would have spotted the look of pride on Robotnik's face as he slowly walked around his newest combat robot.

The cannon's giant barrel was glazing like chrome, perfectly polished. The rest of the weapon vehicle was painted red, the paint still fresh and glittering a little. Seeing an all new robot being finished after all the work he put into it was always an amazing feeling, and this time, Robotnik knew, he would get what he wanted. With this robot, this cannon, he would conquer the world.

There was just one problem to solve while the paint dried and the power core was fused full of ring energy. Or, actually, two problems.

First: The machine needed a fancy name. An awesome name.

Problem two: He couldn't decide which city to conquer first.

* * *

In front of him, just ten or fifteen meters away, Dr. Eggman sat in a giant robot looking like a chilli dog with the Tornado's wings attached to it. The ground was covered in snow, and there were large bundles of dried grass falling from the sky. The entire air smelled of them. Somehow, it even managed to cover the smell of chilli from the giant chilli dog. Or the thing just looked like a chilli dog and really wasn't one.

Sonic leaned forwards, working up a real sweat trying to push himself to a faster speed on the rollerblades he wore. He was just about to succeed, when a dash panel popped out of the ground in front of him. "Hey, no fair!", he shouted as it shot him backwards.

The momentum he'd gained catapulted him straight against a large, red spring that in return bounced him onto a giant floating waffle. In the middle of it, Knuckles stood next to the Master Emerald, busily decorating it with a coat of fine powdered sugar. Sonic expected every moment the echidna would ask him if he wanted a piece of it.

From the left Tails came flying into view, balancing a bottle of Chaos Cola on his head. He pointed at Eggman in the chilli dog bot below the floaty waffle, then at Sonic to follow him. The hedgehog did, kicking for extra speed on the Extreme Gear board he suddenly stood on. In his right hand he found a water gun.

As Tails flew above Eggman, he opened the large bottle and emptied it onto his head. The mad scientist started screaming, and Sonic began shooting at him with the water gun. When the spraying water hit him, Eggman exploded in a purple ball of light, and when it popped away, he had been replaced by an old echidna with spookily glowing eyes that was throwing the bundles of grass that were still falling around them at Sonic.

One of them hit the hedgehog right in the face. His nose filled with the smell of hay and he rubbed his hand over it to get rid of the stuff sticking to it. It didn't go away however, instead he had to sneeze.

The sneeze shook his complete body, and the gasp that followed in almost led to Sonic inhaling some more of the dry hay. The smell of it was still overly persistent… The hedgehog shook himself, rolling to his back and opening his eyes. When had it gotten dark?

"Wow, look who's alive."

Sonic turned his head at the comment from his left, and spotted Knuckles lying in a rather relaxed position on a heap of hay. _Just what's with all that hay at the moment?_ "Where's –", he started, but found he'd forgotten who wasn't there and should be. He looked around again and sat up, absentmindedly working hay off his body. "Where are we?", he corrected himself.

"Some small hut in the middle of nowhere," Knuckles replied. "It seemed the only place to escape certain death in the freezing cold out there." The echidna pointed vaguely at the door.

Sonic looked over to it, looked at Knuckles again, looked around in the hut but there was nothing but walls and hay and a red echidna to see in the dim light. He shook his head. "What the heck _happened_?"

Knuckles frowned. "Human scientists using you as their personal research project, time travel thing, lots of snow and cold, weird purple explosion thing, snow storm, us almost freezing to death," he listed. "You were pretty intend on starting an attempt hibernating in the snow out there, but I thought it was better to try something like that in here."

"Oh." Sonic stared. "What about Eggman? And this chilli dog?"

His friend blinked. "Saw neither of those in while. You probably just dreamed it."

"Oh," Sonic made again, trying to get his mind back on track and failing to apply something like a sensible order to the events.

Knuckles eyed him suspiciously. "You okay?"

The hedgehog nodded. He didn't really feel un-okay. In fact, he felt rather good. Just… a little confused, maybe? "Guess I just have to wake up or something…"

"Uh-huh." Knuckles inclined his head. "You've been asleep for some time... Guess you really needed some serious downtime after being poisoned and frozen and stuff…"

Sonic wasn't quite sure if he could follow, but he just nodded to it again. Looking around another time, he found even if he didn't really remember getting here, Knuckles could have picked a worse spot. It was warm and soft and he actually felt fine… All that was lacking now to make him an all good hedgehog was some nice breakfast… but somehow it didn't look as if something like that was around.

"What mind-blowing contemplations are filling your skull?", Knuckles asked, an amused look on his face as he watched Sonic and for a brief moment the hedgehog wondered if he was really looking like that much of hard thinking.

"Breakfast," he answered then." And that it doesn't look as if there would be some."

Knuckles chuckled, and there was an almost excusing look to his face as if it was his fault this place wasn't exactly famous for an exquisite cuisine. "Sorry, I don't think so. Besides, it'd be more the time for an afternoon snack."

Sonic cocked an eyebrow. "Afternoon?"

"Yeah, I guess." Knuckles rested his left foot on his right knee, still kipped back into the hay. "When I woke up, the day had already started for a while outside, and you were even later than me. Sleepy-head." A mock grin flashed on the guardian's face.

"Oh." It was starting to qualify for Sonic's word of the day.

The echidna tipped his head aside as he looked at him. "I wouldn't really mind if I were you. It's not that you missed anything, and you clearly needed it." The amethyst eyes roamed him for a moment. "You look like yourself again."

Sonic blinked. "And I didn't before?"

Knuckles grimaced. "Not really. I prefer your stupid face in this colour, not the weird shade between white and blue it was."

"… Oh."

* * *

Tails was chewing his bottom lip. "How much time is it?"

If Archibald minded answering the same question the hundredth time or not was hard to tell. He just pointed at the screen with the timer. "Twenty minutes."

Slowly nodding, Tails looked around, letting his eyes roam over the lab's equipment in a complete circle, starting at the computer, going to the Chaos Emerald, following the wiring that connected the powerful gem with their antenna thing up to the big circle of silvery glazing metal. If everything turned out okay, in twenty minutes Sonic and Knuckles would be appearing right there…

Tails tried to imagine it, how it would look. Would they just stand there suddenly? Would there be a bright light like in a normal Choas Control? Would they maybe materialize slowly? Be transparent for a moment? And most importantly… were they alive? Healthy? In one piece and unhurt? Would they still be the two friends he'd known for so long?

Shaking his head, the little two-tailed fox forced the zillion of questions off his mind. They didn't help him with anything. Instead, he focussed on the second machine they had built in the past day.

To an outsider, it looked more like a pile of crap than a functional high-tech device. From Archibald's microwave, or what had formerly been it, three cables ran in different directions. Two of them ended in raw, metal sticks without isolation, glazing in the colour of polished copper. The third cable connected the microwave to the Tornado's ring tank that sat in the middle of two large metal rings in which a high amperage current was inducing a magnetic field they had calculated would be sufficient to hold the weird time energy in there.

Tails looked at their invention again. He had no idea if it would work. If the current would get to high or something he wouldn't be overly surprised if the former microwave would be blown to smithereens…

But this was all they had and it would have to do. The fox sighed, silently glancing around again. It would have to do.

They would soon know if it actually did.

* * *

Sonic's hands were crossed in his neck, his left foot lazily whipping where it rested on his right knee. To his own surprise, the blue hedgehog felt quite relaxed and more at ease than he had for quite a while. Even if they couldn't get away from here and were stuck without food, the gnawing hunger was the only thing keeping him from feeling right perfect.

Also Knuckles didn't seem that unhappy at the moment. Resting as comfortably in soft, warm hay as Sonic, the echidna looked just as much at ease, while his eyes were roaming the interior of the small hut, his face wearing a small frown. "It's really neither your shoes nor mine?"

"Nope." Sonic picked up a long piece of dried grass and started chewing on it before settling back into his relaxed position.

"But it's red."

The hedgehog nodded. "Yup."

Knuckles shot him a glance, eyebrows quirked. "If you mean your watch wristlet thingy, that doesn't count. It stayed on this _wonderful_ space colony."

"Don't remind me." Sonic grimaced. "And no, it's not that thing. Besides, there wasn't much red on it."

Knuckles' amethyst eyes wandered through the hut again. "And it's really in here?"

"Hey, that are the rules, remember?" Sonic chuckled, watching the echidna throwing another look around.

"I give up," Knuckles groaned. "There is nothing red in here other than what I already listed."

A broad grin was spreading on Sonic's face. "Sure. You!"

Knuckles blinked, stared himself down for a moment, then his eyes lifted to playfully glare at Sonic. "That doesn't count!"

Sonic shrugged. "We said everything in this beautiful house counts, and you are in it. So, it's my turn again." Knuckles grumbled a little and Sonic looked around again. "Okay, I got something."

"You'll have to tell me the colour, smarty." The red echidna eyed him.

"Oh, yeah, almost forgot. Our mysterious object is green."

"Green." Knuckles turned his head around, scanning the room for something of that colour. "How about this nice stuff we're lying on?"

Sonic shook his head. "Not even close."

A grin appeared on the echidna's face. "Now I got you. Think you can play the same trick on me again, huh?" He pointed at Sonic's face. "It's your eyes."

"Damn, why didn't I think of that?" Sonic blinked for a moment in surprise, but shook his head again. "But although that's a great idea, that's not it."

Knuckles looked almost disappointed, but just for a few seconds, then he lifted his right foot. "How about my socks?"

Sonic grinned. "Bingo."

"Ha!" Knuckles relaxed back into the hay, a small triumphant smirk playing around his lips.

Sonic wondered what had happened to get the stoic Emerald guardian to enjoy a silly game like this one. Or maybe Knuckles just didn't get to play enough silly games… The hedgehog made a mental note to force more silly games on the echidna in the future. Just for his mental well-being, so to say.

"Okay, I got something, I guess, and it's white."

The blue hedgehog looked around just briefly. "Your gloves?"

"No."

"My shoes?"

"No."

"The marking on your chest?"

Knuckles shook his head. "Not a bad idea, but no."

"Hmm…" Sonic looked around again and his hand went up to rub his forehead. "Man, I guess I'm too hungry to think or something. My stomach stopped hurting, but now my head feels... gah."

"That's not it, I'm afraid." Knuckles grimaced, also holding his head. "I feel it, too."

Sonic blinked rapidly, the headache growing in intensity. "Damn, I was starting to like it here…"

The echidna held his good hand out at him. "Here, we don't want to get separated all over again."

A frown moved over Sonic's face, for a short moment fighting off the pained expression. "As if I would want to land somewhere holding hands with you."

Knuckles groaned. "Then hold my arm, hedgehog. But do it before it's too late, and don't let go."

"Fine…" Sonic gripped around Knuckles' upper left arm, concentrating on maintaining the hold. The headache was still getting stronger.

But something was different this time. Everything happened much slower. Sonic sat on the hay pile he could no longer feel beneath him and watched the bizarre sights around him. It was as if Knuckles and him were sitting in the center of a kaleidoscope. The world around was blurring as if put behind milky glass or a coat of running water, and parts of it really looked as if the very world had fallen apart and the shards were floating around them, dancing along a spiral. A vortex, and the two of them were sitting right in the center of it.

Sonic looked up. The ceiling of the hut that had been so close they had to be careful when standing not to hit their heads seemed to be hundreds of meters away and it was still stretching higher. _Like Eggman's lab that first time._ The thought struck suddenly and Sonic didn't comprehend it. What was different about this time in Eggman's lab where everything had started, all the other times in between, and now?

The events didn't seem intend on giving him the time to cast about for an answer, instead the reknown white light was back. For the first time, Sonic felt like he could really watch it. Watch it be small point of light at first, somewhere between him and Knuckles. It grew brighter and brighter until it blinded him so much he could hardly see the echidna any more. For a moment they looked at each other through the haze of light, then it swallowed them up, and the weird looking world around them.

It covered the hedgehog from all around, seeping into him like the cold wind outside the hut the day before until he couldn't feel his body anymore. He hoped he was still holding Knuckles' arm, although he had no idea at the moment if he still had an arm, or if Knuckles still had one, or if there was still someone called Knuckles he knew. He wasn't even sure if he himself was still there… There was just that white light.

Blinding nothingness.

Everywhere.


	20. Return Call

"Tails!"

Archibald's call cut through the thoughtful silence that had claimed the young fox at some point during those endless twenty minutes. He just sat in a chair, stared at the timer without really seeing it. At the shout of his name, he struggled through the heavy feeling that had grown over the time he'd sat in this uneventful silence and was now weighing him down, like leaden weights that had been stripped to all of his limbs.

Disregarding his nervousness, Tails felt strangely apathic. Helpless. As if the world was about to end and he could do nothing about it. His world. 'Cause that was exactly what was on the line now. His world, his life, his only family. Everything that really, _really_ meant something to him. Screw the Tornado, screw every invention in the world. He'd give them all away without a second thought if he got his brother and their mutual friend back.

As a contrast to the little fox, Archibald seemed strangely energetic as he flicked on all of their machinery. The soft humming grew to a sound as if a swarm of wild hornets had been encaged in the floor and walls of the laboratory and was buzzing around in there. "Okay, we're almost there. Reaching peak in five… four… three…"

Tails' fingers closed around the lever in front of him, built from something that had once been a device to measure _something_ on the observatory's giant telescope. Tails didn't remember and he didn't care.

"… two… one… Now!"

The two-tailed fox jerked at the lever almost in perfect sync with the professor's last word. In the next second, every wire connected to the Chaos Emerald started glowing in the gem's light blue colour, even through all the thick isolation; the metal ring of their improvised loop antenna was so bright, so _shiny,_ that staring at it burned sharp afterimages onto Tails' retinas, and the hornet swarm went entirely crazy.

Ignoring the sting of too bright light in his eyes and shoving the noisy hum into some far off mental corner, the orange fox kept staring at the ring. The air in the middle of it looked as if it was glimmering with heat, but the temperature hadn't changed. For a few long-drawn seconds nothing happened, then the center of the blurriness turned… _misty_. It was the most fitting word Tails could find to name it, but nothing really fit. He could still see the other side of the lab, but he could also see a tiny, transparent and blurred image, floating in the middle of the room. He could see his friends, or what he thought had to be his friends. The image was there for just a second, then a white light covered it, even brighter than the Emerald's glow.

Tails' lungs suddenly reminded him he had forgotten to breathe and he drew in a hasty gasp, not taking his eyes off the ring antenna and the weird _something_ in the middle of it. "Come on…"

* * *

The brightness in his mind and everywhere else was fading slowly. Just as slowly Sonic regained the vague idea that he wasn't a bodyless soul floating through a space of infinite light. The first thing about himself he felt was the pounding headache, a second later the beat of his own heart, then his breathing, then actually his body.

The first real _thought_ that flashed through his brain was of chocolate ice cream, the second registered that his right hand was still clawed around something that felt like it could be Knuckles' arm. He remembered gripping it. His ears twitched at the distant sound of a hum that probably beat Eggman's factories and certainly didn't stem from his pounding skull alone.

And then, suddenly, the noise was gone. It was blissfully quiet for just an instant, then someone was shouting his name. And Knuckles' name. Sonic blinked, trying to clear his sight of the blurs that remained – and actually asked himself if he was still seeing things. If finally the weird chaos time travel had succeeded in damaging his brain.

He saw a little, orange-furred fox, with bright cerulean eyes and a pair of exitedly wagging tails.

And the fox was screaming. "Sonic! Sonic! Sonicsonic _sonicsonic_! And Knuckles! It _worked_ , it really worked!"

Knuckles at his side made a weird sound. "Somebody pinch me…", he mumbled.

Sonic shot just a brief look at the echidna, complying automatically. Knuckles winced and Sonic finally managed to persuade the muscles in his hand to let go of his arm.

His eyes wandered back to the orange fox that was hopping up and down, pointing his hands at him and Knuckles and still screaming their names. "Tails?"

If it was the hedgehog's word or something else that caused it was way beyond Sonic's grasp at the moment, but the fox boy suddenly jumped over the round piece of metal that had separated him from Sonic and Knuckles. "Sonic! Knuckles!"

A second later, Sonic noticed from the back of his mind it was great they were still sitting on the floor; otherwise the force of the impact would have clearly knocked them off their feet when Tails flung himself at them, through some sort of magic trick managing to get his arms to equal parts around them both. Sonic gasped for air just a little. "Whoa, group hug…"

"Sonic!"

In that moment, the hedgehog decided he would try understanding what was happening later. Tails really looked like Tails, he felt like Tails, he even _smelled_ like Tails. And he was crying. Big brother instinct kicking in, Sonic slipped his arm around the little fox, attempting to pull him closer although that was hardly possible. "S'okay, Tails… I'm here…"

"I thought I'd never get you back…", Tails sobbed.

"I thought that, too," Knuckles mumbled quietly. Sonic shot him a glare for this utter lack of comforting skills, but the echidna didn't look at him but at Tails and Sonic noticed with surprise Knuckles didn't seem to mind being glomped and hugged half dead _that_ much at the moment.

"Nah, nah, we always come back," the blue hedgehog soothed, his hand gently petting the back of Tails' head. "That's our speciality."

Through Tails' sobbing he would have almost missed the soft chuckle, but just almost. Not stopping his attempts calming the distressed kid down, Sonic looked up and past a good deal of weird looking stuff, wires and machines and other things. Next to a computer screen, leisurely leaned onto a desk, stood a yellow raccoon in a long white coat. His bushy, striped tail was waving slowly and he looked at the trio on the floor through a pair of glasses that seemed slightly oversized on his face. A small, soft smile lay on his lips and his blue eyes twinkled with almost childish joy.

Sonic shot him a grin, replacing the greeting wave with a nod. "Hi, Professor."

"Hey, Sonic," the raccoon grinned back.

In Sonic's arm, Tails was slowly calming down again. At least he was about to stop crying. "I'm so glad to have you back," he mumbled into the hedgehog's shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm quite happy about that, too, little bro." Sonic smiled, again pressing Tails to himself, his fingers ruffling the fur atop his head.

Tails' ears twitched and he giggled, letting go of Sonic only to tackle Knuckles completely now. "And I'm glad to have you back as well, Knuckles…"

Sonic bit his lip to keep from laughing at Knuckles' look. For a few seconds the guardian's body was strangely stiff and Sonic just knew how very awkward the echidna felt at the moment, but then he relaxed and returned the hug, though not with near as much enthusiasm as Tails. "I have no idea what you did, Tails… But I think I'm going to adopt you for it or something."

Sonic grinned. "Sorry, bud, you're a couple years late for that."

Tails laughed, slowly releasing Knuckles again. "If you adopt me, you'll have to adopt Sonic as well."

Knuckles raised a brow, eying the blue hedgehog. "Oh well," he said then, leaving it open if it was meant as a positive or negative answer.

"We'd be one heck of a weird family," Tails noticed, giggling again.

Sonic was still grinning. "Naw, we're awesome!"

Tails laughed, slowly crawling back to his feet. He wiped the last tears from his eyes, smiling as if today was his birthday, the winter solstice and all existing Mobian national holidays combined.

Sonic was standing swiftly as well, offering Knuckles his hand to pull him to his feet. It was then that Tails finally spotted the cast around the echidna's arm.

He stared. "How'd that happen?"

Sonic and Knuckles exchanged a glance. "Trust me… That's a very long story…", the red echidna trailed.

"We're not sure if he fell on it, or if Angel Island did," Sonic remarked.

Tails stared between them. "Oh."

"I said it's a long story," Knuckles noticed dryly.

"We'd be eager to hear it," the professor announced from the back of the large room.

Knuckles finally noticed him as well. "Hey. You!"

"Hello Knuckles." The yellow raccoon smiled, waving comically.

"Hello… uh… what was your name again?" The echidna ran his good hand through his dreadlocked spines.

The professor laughed. "Don't mind it; it's too long for anyone to remember. And ridiculous, if you ask me. We'll go either with Archibald, or you can just call me Professor."

Knuckles nodded. "Fine with me. Well, if I'm right and you helped Tails built this –" Amethyst eyes roamed the laboratory as he faltered over a fitting term. " – this weird looking thing to rescue us, I'll say thank you."

Archibald inclined his head. "Welcome. But we're not entirely through rescuing you, yet."

Sonic blinked, feeling his ears tipping backwards just slightly. "We're not?"

Tails nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"You see," the professor took over, "because of your both natural inclination to interactions with chaos energy, during the blast at Eggman's laboratory – that created a whole new form of chaos energy radiation with a temporal component – your bodies absorbed a great amount of this distorted energy. The field of this radiation oscillates in a slightly chaotic frequency and at every peak it initiates an effect akin to a chaos control, but with a random temporal component. This field is still there and –"

"Stop!" Knuckles rapidly shook his head. "Try using words I know!"

"Or at least words _I_ know." Sonic grinned stupidly, receiving a glare from Knuckles.

"Oh, I –" Archibald suddenly looked helpless.

"I'll try," Tails said. He waited until both of the others looked at him. "Okay. Eggman's lab. He had a machine, and a Chaos Emerald. Machine blows up. Emerald and explosion create weird energy stuff. Your bodies swallow up weird energy stuff. Weird energy stuff makes that you are teleported around in space and time."

"Ah. Why didn't you say that?" Knuckles smirked a little. The professor shook his head to himself, but grinned and took off his glasses, starting to clean the glass.

"And what is the problem now?", Sonic asked, also smiling at the byplay.

"The problem is that the _weird energy stuff_ is still there. You're full of it." Archibald put his glasses back on, turned around and reached for a small, cubic device that had been lying on the desk. He pointed it at Sonic and Knuckles.

The hedgehog looked at Tails and the two-tailed fox grinned as he answered the non-verbal question. "That's a modified chaos energy detector."

"Thanks." Sonic chuckled. "And what does it tell you?" He stepped to the professor's side so he could look at the display.

Archibald kept the detector pointed right at Knuckles' chest. On the display, a small needle shook glued to the rightmost point it could reach. "You see? Even Knuckles alone bursts the scale."

"Wow. Cool." Sonic gawked.

Tails shook his head. "Not so cool…"

After Knuckles had been shown the same effect on Sonic, the blue hedgehog was looking between Tails and Archibald. "And you said this energy stuff that's in us does the… time travel thing?"

Tails nodded. "Basically, yes."

"But if it's still there… won't we get chaos time travelled away again…?" Knuckles frowned.

"Yes, you would. If we do nothing, exactly that will happen. When the field's intensity reaches the next peak, you'd be gone again." Tails sighed.

Knuckles just opened his mouth without managing to say something, and even Sonic was speechless for a moment aside of a small "Oh."

"But since we went through quite a lot of trouble redirecting you here, we prepared something to prevent that." The raccoon nodded somewhat enthusiastically.

"You did?" Sonic raised an eye ridge. With Archinald's tone, it kind of sounded like a threat.

"Yup." Tails smiled a little again. "Since there is radiation, you're losing energy anyway all the time. So, all we have to do is get the energy out of you quicker."

"And you plan on doing that how?" Even a total retard could have told the red echidna was anything like trusting in whatever the two had 'prepared'.

Tails pointed at a part of the mess of cables and smaller and bigger machines on the floor and various desks. "We use this."

"Uh-hu." Sonic's green eyes slowly cast over the chaotic combination, stopping at a part that looked like a microwave after a bad accident. "Anyone else hungry?"

Tails giggled briefly, eying the professor. "He actually identified your microwave as one."

The raccoon shrugged. "If the two of us did a good job, it's nothing like a microwave anymore."

Sonic blinked irritatedly. "Okay, now are you gonna explain what this is and what we're gonna do so we can stay in this wonderful place and time?"

"Simple." Tails pointed at a pair of wires that came out of what Sonic had thought was – or rather, had been – a microwave and ended each in a blank stick of metal. "You hold these. We activate this machine we built, and suck the energy out of you, and into that thing." He indicated a bizarre looking device resembling a really big ring capsule in a cage of metal that looked suspiciously as if it was carrying a current. "It works on the same principle as the energy supply for the Tornado's engine."

Sonic's arms folded on his chest and he looked at his little brother for a moment. "And what's the snag in it?"

Tails sighed, returning the hedgehog's look. "We have never tried sucking something like chaos energy out of a living being. What isn't harmful for a ring or a Chaos Emerald isn't necessary un-harmful for a person. _For you_ ," he added quietly.

Knuckles stared at Tails. "So, am I right if we can choose between not putting a stop to this weird time travel stuff that almost killed us several times and something you don't know if it won't kill us as well?"

"Yes." The fox's voice was merely a whisper and his tails hung down limply.

"I choose Tails' machine," Sonic said, decided. "Your saying nobody ever tried that before isn't quite correct. Eggman sucked the chaos energy out of me when I was Super Sonic once. He used it to power his laser cannon to release Dark Gaia…"

"And?", Knuckles queried.

"Well, I survived it, right?" Sonic tried a smile.

"And?", the echidna repeated, violet eyes piercing.

"On the negative side, it hurt like hell." Sonic grimaced at the memory. "And something in Eggman's machine backfired and I was kind of injected or something with a good amount of Dark Gaia energy stuff that turned me into a werehog. What also hurt great deal."

"Thanks for being honest," Knuckles said dryly.

Sonic pulled a face. "You're welcome," he replied, tone very clearly sarcastic.

"No, I mean it." Knuckles shrugged. "Now I know what I'm at."

"Nothing will backfire here," Tails cut in. "We made sure it's a one-way track. The energy can only go out of you and in there, not the other way around."

"Fine." Sonic tracked the weird looking installation with a firm look. "Then what are we standing around for? I wanna be through with that; I'm starving."

Tails smiled a little. "Good. We'll get you whatever you want, promise."

Sonic grinned. "Now that's what I wanted to hear." He reached for the two ends of the cables. "And I just hold these, right?"

The professor nodded. "Yes, one in each hand."

The blue hedgehog complied. "Okay, I'm ready." He looked at his friends for a moment. "It was nice knowing you guys…", he joked.

"Don't say something like that…" Tails turned away, ears flat.

Knuckles' eyebrows went up in surprise and he clumsily patted Tails' shoulder. "Nah, Sonic will be fine." He shot the hedgehog a glance that told him he'd regret it if he wouldn't be.

Sonic grinned a little and nodded at Archibald. "Get over with it."

The white-coated raccoon flicked a switch.

It didn't hurt quite as bad as what Sonic remembered of the time he'd been used as a living battery by Eggman's sick invention. Still, Sonic felt as if he'd run into an electric field. He knew he'd screamed, but was too concentrated on _somehow_ bearing the pain and keeping a hold of the two metallic sticks in his tightly clenched fists to really register it. Only when the pain slowly eased away, he found himself on hands and knees. He didn't remember falling. Then he just hunkered, waiting for whatever was to happen, until the pain really left his body. He gasped and lifted his head to look at the others.

Tails looked worried and shaken and as if he needed another hug. Knuckles' face was wearing the stoic mask that told Sonic he probably felt almost like Tails, but would never admit it, and the professor was staring a little too concentrated at his displays.

As if he had felt Sonic's gaze on him, he flicked the switch again. "I guess that was it," he announced. "The flow of energy stopped."

Sonic slowly picked himself up, carelessly dropping the cables to the floor. Archibald scanned him with the chaos energy detector, then he nodded, a small smile on his face. "He's clean," he said.

"Cool." Sonic grinned. "I guess I need a drink. But before that, we gotta get Knux free of evil time energy stuff."

"I can't wait," the guardian muttered, and Sonic wasn't sure if there was irony in his words or not.

Tails seemed to have regained his speech. He pointed at a chair. "I suggest you sit down, Knuckles. If your arm is already broken, we don't need you falling on it and making it worse."

Knuckles frowned. "I can stand just great and –"

"Sonic couldn't stand," Tails reasoned softly.

"I'm not -", Knuckles started, clearly intending to line out why he was better than the hedgehog, but Sonic decided to gang up with Tails against the red echidna.

"Knux. Sit." He gestured him into the chair.

"Hey, I'm not a pet or something!", the echidna complained.

"Then don't behave like an idiot." Sonic pushed him into the seat and reached to hand him the cables. "Enjoy yourself."

"Very funny." Knuckles shot him yet another glare. Sonic had stopped counting them.

Apparently the professor had decided to interrupt the small quarrel at this point. "Ready, Knuckles?"

The guardian nodded. "As ready as I will ever be…"

Archibald didn't give him the time to phrase out a long complaint. Probably he thought the faster they were done with it, the better, Sonic mused. If so, he could for once agree with the weird raccoon scientist.

Knuckles squirmed on the chair just like Sonic assumed he had squirmed on the floor, eyes clenched tightly shut and pain evident on his face. But Sonic had to give his friend something; the echidna was proud and he didn't let any actual scream past ground teeth. In less than twenty seconds it was over and the professor turned off the machine, declaring Knuckles time energy free as well.

Sonic smiled at the echidna. "Now I guess we can go for a celebration, don't you think?"

Knuckles had dropped back against the chair, blinking slowly. He didn't reply to Sonic's statement.

"Knux?"

When Sonic leaned closer to look at his face, Knuckles gazed back with pupils blown wide enough to almost cover the purple in his eyes and a dazed smile of enchanted bliss on his lips. "Sonic, I can feel it…"

"Feel what?" The blue hedgehog frowned.

The echidna's voice was a hushed whisper. "The… _Master Emerald_ …", he mumbled quietly. And then, for the first time Sonic had ever witnessed, Knuckles the Echidna did something as indignified as fainting.


	21. Home Sweet Home

It was there, right there, warm and familiar. Like a gentle autumn breeze it was brushing through his mind, his world. It was everywhere, palming over his nerves, over that sense that ran so much deeper than anything else he knew, making him tingle all over.

 _Home._ It was Knuckles' first thought, he didn't know since when. He didn't know much at all. Just that there was this soft, warm energy, washing over him. He was floating in it. His mind was; he couldn't make any statements on his body. All he could say on that one was that it was still tingling, still warm, weightless and yet heavy. It didn't make sense and he didn't want it to. What could sense be good for? Sense was about thinking, and he didn't want to think. He wanted to feel.

In his mind, he could hear the Master again, finally. It was singing, a melody so beautiful it couldn't really be from this world, wasn't from this world perhaps. Nothing about the Emeralds really seemed from this world.

As it slowly faded into the familiar hum in the back of his mind, Knuckles just lay and breathed, slowly actually waking up now. He felt as if he'd slept better than anytime before in his life and the last blurs of a dream still hung hazily over his mind. He shifted a little, finding himself lying on something soft. His bed? Maybe, but something about it didn't fit.

The Emerald was still there, a pulsing echo in the very back of his mind. While he slowly drifted closer to full wakefulness, he started to feel it from yet another spot. It was as if his right arm was filled with its energy up to his elbow, radiation its warmth. Knuckles smiled.

Memory kicked in step by step and he came to the realization this really couldn't be his bed. Curiosity and irritation followed suit and the echidna opened his eyes. He was greeted by the sight of a wood-beamed ceiling he didn't remember seeing before and sat up quickly in confused alarm, a short burst of adrenaline chasing off the last reminders of sleep.

The soft thing was a brown, old-looking sofa. There were two equally brown and old-looking lawnchairs in the room as well, grouped around a low table. Knuckles tilted his head. He'd been wrong; he _had_ seen this room before. The living room in the observatory. Tails had a weird friend here, the only person Knuckles knew who talked more cryptic stuff than Tails in a technobabble fit.

Talking of technobabble...

He turned his head to the door at the sound of voices and stood up to see what the others were doing. He had made just a few steps when his stomach chose to remind him he hadn't eaten in what probably were days. Hopefully his friends had managed to get hold of something edible, Knuckles mused.

When he stepped into the less than skilfully decorated corridor, his ears told him at least a direction to pick to find the others in the huge house. He could hear Sonic and Tails laughing and something about the sound was incredibly pleasing.

Light was falling through an open door into the corridor and Knuckles poked his head inside. Apparently, he'd found the professor's kitchen, or what served as an excuse for it. The room was rather small in comparison to the rest of the building, one wall completely covered with cupboards and the rest of the limited space the room offered was almost entirely filled with the small table and the chairs around it.

To the left of the door, a kind of counter was sitting under a window you couldn't actually look through due to the pile of dirty dishes on it. Plates, bowls, cups and glasses stapled almost higher than Knuckles was tall. There was something that looked like a newspaper on the floor, but nobody seemed to consider picking it up and Knuckles wouldn't be surprised if it lay there already long enough to grow roots on the tiling.

The three people inside the room didn't seem to mind the chaos though; Tails and the professor sat on the two chairs facing away from the door and Sonic had found a clear spot on the one edge of the counter that wasn't full of stuff. The blue hedgehog was dangling his legs, face hidden behind some big, colourful piece of paper he was looking at or reading.

Knuckles cleared his throat, causing the fox and raccoon to turn around and Sonic to lower the paper thing enough so he could look over it. The sight was pretty comical actually, the blue hedgehog between all the staples of dishes peering over that piece of paper. As if the paper had grown blue ears and quills and green eyes twinkling at Knuckles.

"Yo, Knux!" It was impossible to see his mouth, but by the way his black nose twitched and his eyes had grown a little wider than usually, Knuckles was sure the hedgehog was grinning.

"Hey." The echidna smiled, casting about for something remotely intelligent to say. He had not gotten far when Tails stood from his chair and was coming over to where Knuckles still stood in the doorframe.

"Don't stand there like that! Come on in!" Without caring to consult him about it, the two-tailed fox had grabbed Knuckles left hand by the tips of the echidna's fingers and pulled him over towards the table. Knuckles was shoved into one of the free chairs until he had no other chance but to sit down on it. "Are you feeling better?", Tails queried, brightly blue eyes innocent and cheerful at seeing him, and yet full of concern the fox didn't manage to hide.

Knuckles nodded. "Yeah, I'm really good, I guess…"

"Told ya," Sonic spoke up, finally dropping the huge paper into his lap.

"I was worried about you." Not showing much reaction to the hedgehog's input, Tails' eyes still rested on Knuckles' face. "What happened?"

"Uh, I… "The red echidna looked between the others. "I don't know if I really understand it, but –"

"The weird energy?", Tails suggested, leaning his elbow on the table and resting his chin in his hand. "I was worried that it hurt you, like radiation poisoning or something, because you're so sensitve to chaos energy, being the guardian and all. Or..." Tails paused for a moment, his fingers clawing at the fur on his chin in what Knuckles took as nervousness. "Or if we hurt you when we just sucked this other energy out of you," the young fox continued more quietly.

Knuckles shook his head. "No, I... don't think you hurt me, Tails. In fact, I think you fixed something. You know, I don't remember any time in my life when I couldn't feel the Master Emerald. I always feel it. I'm the guardian. It's like… breathing air for me. It's always there." He leaned into the chair, attempting to find the right words to properly explain it while still not giving away more than was probably necessary. "And then, after what happened in Eggman's lab, when we were lost in time – it wasn't there. For the first time ever. It was… _horrible_ …"

"Sonic said chaos energy didn't work for either of you. I think it was some sort of interference." Tails nodded a little, still looking at him, and Knuckles wasn't sure if his little friend understood what it was like to lose something that was essentially a part of you.

"And then suddenly it was back and I –" The echidna shook his head. "I don't know, it was kinda… overwhelming, maybe?"

Sonic chuckled a little. "You were _stoned_ , Knux. Totally stoned."

Knuckles shot him a glare. "So what?"

"Nothing." Sonic shrugged, grinning. "Enjoy your happy delirium. I'm not jealous."

"You suggested dumping a bucket of cold water over his head," Tails reminded the hedgehog, but even the little fox was starting to look more relaxed again.

Sonic shrugged again, but in a much more exaggerated gesture. "He wouldn't wake up."

"And you thought it was a good idea to shock me with cold water? I'll remember that for the next time you're not quite feeling too great. Or the next time you fall asleep somewhere. Whatever happens first." Knuckles grinned mischievously. "Or, you know, next time you had too much Chaos Cola."

"Uh-huh." For a moment Sonic looked unsure if he should be scared of the threat of getting something as dreadful as water poured over his head or if he should find the situation at least a tad bit amusing. He had not yet decided on one of them when Knuckles turned to Tails.

"I take it I owe it to you Sonic didn't get to shower me?"

Tails nodded. "Yes. We didn't know what was wrong with you, and I thought extra stress might be bad." He leaned closer to Knuckles. "Sonic was worried, too, he just doesn't admit it."

Proving he had pretty sharp ears, the hedgehog shook his head. "Nah, I knew he was fine."

"Sure you did." Knuckles smirked and winked at Tails. The fox smiled back, and suddenly it felt like they had a secret to share. For some reason, Knuckles thought he enjoyed that.

Either having missed the byplay or deciding to ignore it, Sonic was still grinning broadly at his friends from where he was sitting on the counter. "Anyway, now that even the last of us has recovered from his Master Emerald shock, we can finally get to the food."

Knuckles had been about to fire some comment back at the hedgehog, but the second part of his sentence contained a word that momentarily had the effect of a magic spell. "Food?"

"Yeah, food." Sonic laughed. "Glad you're agreeing we should get some." He waved the large paper at Knuckles. "Here, have a look if you like something of this."

The echidna clumsily caught the paper when Sonic tossed it at him. "You don't need it?"

"Nope, I probably know it by heart by now…" The hedgehog shrugged.

Tails laughed. "Aw, you haven't been looking at it _that_ long."

"About three minutes, actually," the professor put in from where he was sitting on his chair in the corned, watching the trio with amused eyes, and Knuckles noticed it was the first time he'd said something. Apparently they were quite a show, and not one you interrupted. Or the raccoon only talked when it involved words like 'muon transmission'. Tails had said that once, and Knuckles still had no idea what it meant.

He didn't get to contemplate it however, as Archibald had turned fully to Sonic now and kept talking. "And really, I think we did a good job keeping you busy before that."

"Actually… yeah," Sonic admitted. "Maybe with a bit of practice I'll become quite the story teller."

"With a bit of _more_ practice…" Tails giggled.

"Story teller? _You_?" Knuckles looked up from his attempt folding the paper along the perforations to trim it to a size you could handle properly.

Sonic nodded. "Yeah. You know, the two of them can be quite persistent. It was either I tell them about our time travels, or they explain me how that weird machine thingy works." The blue hedgehog grimaced.

Knuckles grinned, trying to flip the paper over. "Ah. I see. And what do they say about your story telling qualities?"

"Marvellous. Very entertaining." Professor Archibald smiled.

Seeing Tails roll his eyes, Knuckles focussed his gaze on the fox. "Tails?"

"Well, it was a little… chaotic. And a little hurried. And confusing. But that's just Sonic." The fox grinned.

"Hey!" The hedgehog frowned, indicating the professor. "He said it was good!"

Knuckles was about to say something like 'he always talks random, confusing stuff', but decided against it. "So you're all up-to-date on what happened to us now?"

"I guess." Tails smiled. "If you want to add anything of course, we'll be glad to hear it."

"Maybe later." Beginning to get annoyed, Knuckles shook the piece of paper. _Damn that thing_ …

"I can't look at this any longer…" Sonic swiftly hopped off the counter thing he'd been sitting on surprisingly still so far and snatched the paper out of Knuckles' hand. Slightly taken aback the echidna watched the big sheet quickly being folded a few times until it formed a proper brochure. With a small grin, Sonic turned it around and placed it back in Knuckles' still held up hand. "Here you go."

"Uh, thanks." The echidna stared down on the booklet, feeling stupid.

Seeming to notice the effect his unasked-for help had on his friend, Sonic smiled a little. "It's a lot easier if you have two hands, y'know. Not that you don't have two hands, but –"

Knuckles chuckled. "I get it."

"You know, you could have just said you needed help," Tails said, also smiling.

"I-"

"Until Knux decides to ask for help, I'll be starved," Sonic interrupted, flopping into the last free chair, causing it to tilt backwards until it balanced on two of its legs.

"Yeah, and if you don't starve you'll break your neck." Knuckles turned back to the brochure. Its pages were filled with long lists of all sorts of different foods with a few pictures of some meals in between. Most of the names didn't mean much to Knuckles. After a few times of flicking through the pages the echidna decided for backed potatoes, fish and a fruit salad.

He'd barely announced his choice when the brochure was ripped from his hand and Sonic's chair fell over with a loud noise when its occupant jumped off it. "I'll do the call!", the hedgehog shouted, already halfway through the door.

"Okay…" Tails blinked, staring after his adopted brother, then he shrugged. "He's hungry."

"I'm too," Knuckles admitted, relaxing back into his chair. "So, how are the plans after we all had some nice… what? Lunch? Dinner?"

"Early dinner." Tails smiled again. "I thought we'd take the Tornado and head over to my place."

"Wait… my hat's at your place!" Knuckles perked at the memory.

"Yes, I think so." The young fox giggled lightly. "If you want to, we'll fly you home tomorrow then."

The echidna nodded. _Home_ … That sounded even more promising than the prospect of dinner to him.

* * *

The orange sunlight that fell through the wide open hangar doors caused shiny reflections on the chrome parts of the motorcycle. Its wheels were currently pointing upwards as it rested on the seat and handlebar. Tails sat on the floor next to it, several new and old parts spread around him. He was about to fit the engine back in.

Sonic sat on an old wooden chair, practically the wrong way around, his arms slung around the chair's back and his chin resting on them as he watched his little brother work. He'd asked if he could be of help, but the only thing Tails had wanted of him was a short helping hand in turning the bike over. The hedgehog had to admit he wasn't exactly what you called a technical genius, anyway.

At Tails' other side, Knuckles was sitting on a wooden box, his back leaning against the side of the parked Tornado. With his legs crossed at the knees, his arms leisurely folded over his chest and the kind of cowboy-style hat pulled half over his face, he looked more at ease than Sonic had seen in quite a while. The hedgehog smiled. Knuckles had insisted on wearing the hat, even though they were practically inside. The orange light of the sunset behind the cliffs outside let the echidna's fur appear even redder as it actually was and even the white sling and cast around his arm had gained an orange hue.

The effect was even stronger on Tails; his anyways orange-brown fur was looking almost like gold. Sonic looked himself down. Blue apparently wasn't that much of an effectful colour with sunsets. He grinned. He still thought it was the coolest colour in the world.

Sonic returned his attention to Tails and the motorcycle the fox was working on. It had been leaning against the hangar door when they arrived about an hour ago and had forced the little fox to finally explain how he'd gotten hold of the Chaos Emerald he'd needed to get the two of them back.

Sonic himself had found the notion Shadow had helped Tails out to get his broken bike fixed pretty amusing; Knuckles had not been so fond of Tails telling Rouge the Bat, the world's most notorious treasure huntress, that he was lost in time and space and thus the Master Emerald without its guardian. The way Tails had blushed at the echidna's complaint had told Sonic without words the little fox had not thought of that at all. Not that Sonic was surprised about it. Coming to his little brother's help, he'd shut Knuckles up by saying it was surely the better choice rescuing them and, if need be, _then_ getting the Master Emerald back, instead of not rescuing them at all and the Emerald being unguarded forever. Apparently Sonic's logic had gotten through to the echidna; Knuckles was pleasantly silent ever since, just sitting and watching Tails work.

Face somewhat buried in the bike's motorblock, Tails reached out with his right hand, blindly feeling over the ground behind him. Sonic concluded quickly what he was searching for and extended his left foot, giving the screwdriver a small push with the tip of his shoe that let it slide across the floor into Tails' fingers. A chuckle sounded from Knuckles as Tails picked it up and continued his work.

Just a few minutes later, the fox turned around to his friends, patting the bike's side with a flat hand. "All done." He smiled and stood up. "I'm gonna call Shadow and tell him we're even."

Sonic grinned. "Shadow got a phone? I don't believe that."

"He doesn't." Tails shrugged. "Rouge does."

"Ah," Knuckles made, raising a brow. It was mostly visible in the way his hat slightly shifted position due to the small movement beneath it. "And Rouge knows where to find him?"

"I figured she would." Tails nodded. "Actually, he was at her place when I came there a couple days ago. Maybe he still is. If not, it's his problem, not mine. I did my job." He shrugged again and parted to get hold of a phone.

Sonic studied the still upside-down motorcycle. "Kinda weird to know Shadow values our lives the same as this thing, isn't it?"

Knuckles made an irritated sound. "I didn't know he values us at all," he noticed.

"If you're putting it that way…" Sonic chuckled. "Maybe he secretly likes us anyway."

"Of course, and Eggman will become our happy family's nice uncle." The deadpan was more than obvious in the echidna's tone. "Sure. Someone should check you for brain damage, Sonic. You show signs of utter lack of realism."

The blue hedgehog laughed. "And you're qualified to diagnose me?"

Knuckles' only reply was a lazy wave of his hand.

"Diagnose what?", Tails asked, reappearing around the parked biplane.

"Sonic's troubles _in here_." Knuckles tipped a finger against his head.

Sonic grinned. "I don't have any troubles in your head, Knux."

For a short moment the echidna actually looked confused at the comeback, then he grimaced. "Uh."

Still grinning amusedly, Sonic turned to Tails. "Don't mind us. Did you get Shadow?"

"Yup. He says he'll be here in a minute."

"A minute?" It was Sonic's turn to frown. "That'd be fast even for me."

"Aw, don't tell us it'd hurt your ego." Knuckles suddenly grinned again. Sonic shot him a glare.

Mostly ignoring the banter, the two-tailed fox walked up to the bike. "Can you help me again?"

"Sure." Sonic stood from his chair and together they put the motorcycle back on its wheels.

They were barely done when Knuckles pointed at the open door. "We're getting company."

Sonic turned around. A shape of bright light had appeared there, lasting for a couple of seconds, then it vanished and revealed a black hedgehog and a white bat. "That's cheating," Sonic remarked. Tails giggled and Knuckles softly shook his head to himself.

Watching the pair of newcomers approach, Sonic once again noticed how awkward Shadow's walking looked. Probably skating was the only way he could move elegantly. Rouge was a completely different matter; the bat's steps were smooth and fluid. And yet, there was something similar to the two of them. They both had this look of someone who finds they are superior, of someone who feels a little too awesome. Sonic too thought he was awesome, but not like that... right?

Shadow's red eyes shortly moved over Tails, then Knuckles and Sonic. "Look who's back," he said.

Sonic felt compelled to grin at him. "Hiya Shadow!" He waved exaggeratedly cheerily. "Hey, Rouge!"

"Hi, Big Blue." She smiled. "Hello Knuckie. How was your little trip?"

"Really exciting," Sonic cut in before Knuckles got a proper chance feeling provoked. "You should try something like it yourself."

The bat giggled. "Good to see you didn't lose your sense of humour."

"Well, other than Shadow, I have a sense of humour, and I don't easily lose it." Sonic grinned.

A frown lay on Shadow's face, like usually. "Well, other than you, I don't need to rely on others because I get myself lost in space."

"And who of us needs to rely on an eight-year-old to fix his toys?" Sonic folded his arms, mocking his black counterpart by keeping the grin firmly on his face.

"Guys! Cut it off, okay?" Tails looked between the hedgehogs. Knuckles however seemed mildly amused.

"Okay, fine." Sonic shrugged, tilting his head. "I guess it's fair saying thank you for helping Tails rescue us."

"We made a deal, that's all," Shadow corrected. "I didn't rescue you, faker."

"Good, then thanks for making nice deals with Tails." Sonic blinked an eye at the black hedgehog.

Shadow grimly looked back, but apparently didn't know what to say as a comeback.

His companion looked around in the hangar and between the people in it for a moment, then the silence apparently didn't appeal to her any longer. "Well, now that we exchanged all these friendly words, can we get to business, maybe?"

"Sure." Tails pointed. "It's standing right before you. All fixed and pimped up. I installed a new engine with a hyper-"

"Does it go faster?", Shadow interrupted, crimson eyes piercing.

"Not only that." Tails finally was in his element. "You can –"

"I'll find out," the black hedgehog cut him off yet again.

"Uh, okay." The little fox frowned. "Just be careful with –"

"I know how to drive, Tails." Shadow gripped the handlebar of the bike and rolled it out of the hangar. "Rouge? Are you coming?"

She smiled. "Does that mean I get my trip?"

For an odd moment there was a genuine smile on Shadow's face neither Sonic nor any of his two friends would have expected. "Maybe."

Rouge giggled, climbing onto the bike behind Shadow, but she turned to the so far rather still red echidna again. "Just so you know, Knuckie, I'm kinda glad you're back. Stealing someone's jewels is boring if they're not there." She winked, her turquoise eyes twinkling with mirth.

Knuckles jumped from his seat. "Hey, don't you dare and try –"

Rouge laughed. "I just _love_ provoking you, Knucklehead." She slung her arms around Shadow's waist. "Alright, I'm ready."

Another unfamiliar smile crossed the black hedgehog's face and to Sonic's surprise he didn't seem uncomfortable with Rouge's tight hold on him. He still smiled as his red eyes cast a last time over Sonic and his friends. "Later, faker."

Sonic waved, smiling stupidly and knowing it would annoy the 'Ultimate Lifeform'. "Bye, Shadow!"

"Always a pleasure working with you. See ya, boys… AH!" Rouge's sultry goodbye was cut off when Shadow turned on his bike's new engine and the motorcycle shot forwards. Just a moment later the dark pair was gone.

Tails looked after them. " _That_ was what I wanted to say. He should have held the brakes."

Sonic and Knuckles broke out laughing.

* * *

The Egg Scorcher was slowly lowered out of the aircraft. Robotnik watched it settle on the ground, a powerful device of doom worthy of the name he had finally found for it, and his eyes wandered over to the horizon. Out of the haze of a late evening, the skyline of Empire City was growing into the already darkish sky like a bunch of toy blocks.

The mad scientist grinned to himself. If the inhabitants didn't have common sense, in a few hours their proud skyline would look somewhat different… He wondered how it'd look after meeting his new laser. The glass of the windows would splinter under the heat within seconds for sure, but the concrete should stand a lot more than other materials.

 _Probably_ a few ruins would remain.

Robotnik laughed. It wasn't that destroying the city was his favourite option. After all, having a city like this one as a starting point for his very own empire was also alluring in a way…

He shrugged. He'd just see how things turned out. An advance party of flying robots was already on their way to Empire City, in the early morning hours they would announce his ultimatum over their loudspeakers for every citizen to hear.

His demands were simple. Surrender the city, or get toasted. No matter how things turned out, he was more than looking forward to it. Either he got a city, or he got to scorch stuff.

Win-win situation, wasn't it? And for now, not even a blue hedgehog in sight.

Robotnik smiled.


	22. Enter Eggman

Leisurely Sonic dangled his legs. There was nothing below his feet, just a couple kilometres of air maybe. From on the plane, sitting on the left of the Tornado's wings, the world below looked tiny and fragile. The houses of the villages, the cars on the few roads, the occasional train or ship, everything looked like toys. A model railway landscape. Even the high mountain ridges, tipped with shining white glaciers had switched their impressing hugeness to looking small. Loops, hills, rivers… There was a lot to see, and just sometimes the few separated, misty clouds that hung low over Mobius' morning would obscure the view, but they just upped the beauty of the sight another bit. Soft pieces of floating, fluffy cotton in shiny sunlight.

The air stream brushed back his quills as though he was running and Sonic smiled, turning to sit sideways on the wing and be able to look back at his friends.

Tails was looking down to the left, probably navigating. His tails waved lazily in the wind. He held the biplane's controls with just his left hand, leaned back in relaxation.

Knuckles' amethyst eyes were half closed, his nose angled up into the wind, his long spines softly moving with the steady airflow, flying around his head. The smile that lay on his face was one of the serenest Sonic had ever seen on him. The hedgehog knew how much coming home meant to Knuckles, and he was glad he got to keep his promise to get him back there. Not that he'd ever really doubted, of course.

A beeping sound from the biplane's airborne computer interrupted the relaxed silence and the red echidna sat upright in his seat, irritation apparent on his face at the annoying noise. "What's that?"

"Something wrong, Tails?", Sonic asked, looking at the fox.

Tails still held the Tornado's control with his left hand, but his right now rushed over the computer's touch screen. "Something triggered the Eggman alert…"

Sonic exchanged a glance with Knuckles. "The Eggman alert? What's that?"

"It's a new program I wrote a few weeks ago. I'm still testing it," Tails replied, still typing on the screen. "Basically, it records news reports and radio transmission it catches and runs them through a filter that searches for anything about Dr. Eggman. I thought it would be useful to know where he is seen and stuff."

"Pretty neat, Tails." Sonic nodded. "And where is he now?"

Tails looked up at the blue hedgehog. "A fleet of flying robots is just now beginning to attack Empire City, and Eggman himself is a few miles outside the town in a new robot vehicle or something. He just announced if in one hour the city isn't surrendered to him, he'll burn it to ashes."

Sonic felt his face turn grim. "Not on our watch. Tails –"

"I'm at it," the two-tailed fox cut in. "I think if we're fast we can make it in time..."

"Good going, little bro!" Sonic nodded, then his eyes found Knuckles and he suddenly realized the echidna couldn't be happy about this interruption, so close to his home already… "Knux?"

To Sonic's surprise, a firm grin played around the red guardian's lips. "Don't worry about me. We still have a score to settle with Eggman for getting us into all this mess. Just go for it, Tails."

"Way to go!" Sonic smiled, giving the echidna a thumbs-up.

"That Eggman's wrong if he think he can mess with us and just get away with it." Knuckles still wore a smirk.

Tails grinned. "I'm already plotting the quickest course."

"That's what we wanted to hear." Sonic laughed. "Eggman should better prepare himself, 'cause now there's three of us again."

Knuckles nodded. "And he owes us."

* * *

The grip of wind on Sonic's stream-lined spikes had intensified. Much closer than before, the surface was rushing away under the Tornado's wings, and in front of them the skyline of Empire City with its familiar sky scrapers was peeling out of the hazy horizon.

"How's it look, Tails?", Sonic asked, turning around to the fox who was throwing glances at his computer while piloting the biplane.

"According to the data, Eggman is still a good deal outside the city, but there are a lot of robots already between the sky scrapers," Tails informed the hedgehog.

Sonic nodded firmly. "If you can handle those, I'll deal with Eggman. Just drop me outside town." He turned to Knuckles. "You wanna stay with Tails or come with me?"

The echidna frowned thoughtfully. "Hey, Tails?"

"Yeah?" The young fox turned around to look at him.

"You're going to chase the robots in the plane, right?" The frown on Knuckles' face didn't waver a bit.

"Uh, yes, sure. Why?"

"Ugh. That means it's going to involve loops and flying upside down and stuff like that, right?" A grimace had mingled into the expression of the guardian's face.

"Yes, I think so…" Tails shrugged a little.

"Then I'm with Sonic," Knuckles insisted.

The blue hedgehog laughed. "Welcome to the team then." He grinned at the echidna. "What do you have against loops and twists, Knux?"

"I just had breakfast, you know?" Knuckles' tone was dry again, but he was grinning a little. "Besides, dealing with Eggman himself if more my thing than dealing with a bunch of brainless machines." He eyed Sonic. "And someone has to make sure you don't get yourself killed."

"I never got myself killed by Eggman before." Sonic grinned again. "But your assistance is appreciated." He turned to Tails again. "Then you drop Knux and me outside town and go after the flying enemies."

Tails nodded, decision written over his youthful face. "Got it, Sonic."

Already the wide curve Tails flew around the city allowed them to see a couple of the flying robots Dr. Eggman had sent to begin the attack even before the deadline he'd announced was reached and he brought his new robot into action.

Sonic crossed his arms over his chest, firmly looking at the ground ahead of them, the wide plains around the city, shining in different shades of green, bright ones for the grassy fields and darker hues for the occasional forest. The hedgehog's eyes followed the grey lines the highways leading into Empire City from all around painted on the landscape below. As it seemed, Eggman had picked a rather wide field without streets and buildings for his approach; just a minute outside town there were only rare, smaller roads to see.

As he watched the space ahead, waiting for his nemesis and his newest invention to come into view, Sonic wondered what it would be like. It was impossible to tell what Eggman came up with; he'd created so many weird robots over time, you had to expect everything.

"He's right in front of us," Tails' words cut into the hedgehog's thoughts and Sonic's gaze searched just briefly until he spotted their goal.

Compared with other so called doomsday creations of his they had encountered over time, this one was somewhat smaller than Sonic had expected, and it wasn't quite as odd-looking as the last few things Eggman had build. To Sonic, the machine looked like a really long, big kind of tube mounted onto a vehicle that bore a slight resemblance with a tractor. It had pretty large wheels and was – aside of the tube thing – also carrying a bunch of glowing machine stuff, and of course Eggman's notorious flying pot thing.

"I would have thought it'd look more awesome," Sonic commented. "He built less boring stuff before."

"Well, I think it's actually a sort of progress it isn't shaped like him," Knuckles noticed dryly.

"You're right; that way it's a lot less disgusting." Sonic chuckled. "What do you think it'll do?"

Although the question wasn't actually addressed to anyone in particular, Tails felt compelled to answer it. "I think it's some sort of laser cannon, Sonic."

"Ah. That's _almost_ new." The hedgehog shrugged. "I'm curious what it can do."

"Be careful, it's really big. If it does what I think it does, it's gonna have a laser beam bigger than anything we're seen so far, apart from the Eclipse Cannon or something like it," Tails reasoned. "You better stay clear of it."

Sonic nodded, serious now. "Yeah, we will."

"Don't worry about us, Tails." Knuckles threw a look down the side of the plane, judging the distance to the ground. "You just take care of the flying robots."

"And we handle Eggman and his laser truck." Sonic grinned a little.

"Fine. Get ready to jump." Tails' blue eyes scanned his instruments and the ground below the plane quickly. "Good luck."

"You too, little bro. Meet ya at the park, it's long enough to land there." Sonic waved at Tails and somersaulted down from the biplane's wing.

"Later, Tails." Knuckles gave the fox a short nod before standing in his seat and flanking over the side of the plane to join Sonic.

Sonic stood and watched Knuckles land next to him, short fall smoothly cushioned by his long, flaring spines, then the hedgehog briefly looked after the biplane curving away and climbing again to head back to the city. "Alright then. Let's see how Eggman's been doing while we were gone."

Knuckles nodded and the two friends covered the short distance to Dr. Eggman's robot vehicle in a jog.

Apparently they had already been spotted, the vehicle had stopped in the middle of a wide field of grass with a lot of rocks lying around and from out of his mobile floating pot, the notorious scientist was looking down on them. "Well, well, if this isn't Sonic and Knuckles. I was wondering if I had really managed to blow you to bits. Looks like you escaped alright."

"Yeah, it wasn't a problem, really." Sonic grinned, stopping just about thirty or fourty meters away from the machine, looking up at Eggman. "We even went on a nice trip."

"Did you?" For a moment, Eggman even seemed interested, then he apparently shoved it aside in favor of the world domination plan at hand. "I hope it was pleasant then, 'cause it will have been your last."

"Ah, now we're at the point again when you tell me how awesome your plan is and how I can't spoil it, right?" Sonic still grinned, head tilted aside and ears twitching in light amusement.

"Or the point where he tells us his latest creation will surely be our end," Knuckles added, stepping up to Sonic's side.

"Silence, you stupid brats! You don't know what you're beholding!" Eggman gestured widely with his arms. "This is my latest masterpiece, the mightiest non-stationary laser weapon in existence. I call it the Egg Scorcher!"

"Scorcher?" Sonic shrugged a little, turning to Knuckles. "Lemme guess... He'll keep screaming 'Burn, burn to ashes!' at us?"

"Silence, pincushion!" Just as Sonic had anticipated, Eggman was driven to his feet, accusingly pointing his finger at him. "You know _nothing_! I will build a whole series of weapons after this one, and they're all going to be –"

"Dull? Boring? Shoot with eggs?", Sonic mockingly suggested.

"Argh, you -!"

Knuckles leaned over to the blue hedgehog. "Are you sure angering him like that is a good idea?"

Sonic grinned. "That's part of the strategy. We annoy him until he starts attacking us, then we can see what his thing can do and find out how to dismantle it."

"Ah, I see." Knuckles frowned. "I still like Tails' plans better."

"You wanted to go with me instead, you remember? It was your own choice." Sonic tilted his head at the echidna.

"Yeah, yeah. Then be quick and make him start attacking us, I'm sick of standing around here like that." Knuckles smirked.

Sonic chuckled. "Hey, Eggman!" The hedgehog started hopping on the spot. "Why don't you hurry up and show us what your thing can do; Knuckles says he's bored!"

"Argh, you're asking for it?! Well, I'll show you, Sonic!" Eggman dropped back into his seat, his hand hammering onto the control panel in front of him. "Behold my death beams! Take this!"

In spite of his displayed casualness, Sonic was watching the mad scientist and his machine carefully. The long tube thing was pointing a little to the side instead of directly at him and Knuckles, and now a glow that quickly increased in intensity was illuminating the inside of what was probably a barrel of some sort. The blue hedgehog didn't know much about weapons, aside of a few basic concepts of how to break them. But he knew that in spite of the fun he always made of them, Eggman's weapon were dangerous indeed. Sonic braced himself to be able to jump out of the way quickly, but the shot came so suddenly even the hedgehog hardly managed to react.

The beam was bigger than anything like it Sonic had seen in his life, and he had seen a lot. It was as if the very air had turned into a lance of white-hot energy. Sonic jumped in the last possible moment, taking Knuckles down with him. The giant laser ran through the air in their backs and collided with a large rock that had been unfortunate enough to be in the way. It splintered under the sudden heat as if it was explosive itself, scattering debris around and creating a shockwave that threw the two Mobians tumbling across the grass.

Sonic rolled over to his back staring at the hole that was where the rock had been a second ago, and at the burning grass between it and the cannon's muzzle. "That…"

"Are you impressed, Sonic?" Eggman laughed, and the cannon's tip turned to point at the two on the ground.


	23. Burn, Scorch, Explode

The cannon fired, and Sonic squeezed his eyes shut. There was nowhere to run. One, two, three long seconds passed with the hedgehog waiting for the final pain before his flesh would burn off his bones…

Nothing like it happened. Carefully Sonic cracked one eye open just a notch. The second one rapidly joined it and the blue hedgehog stared at the sight in front of him, his mind struggling to comprehend it.

Knuckles had dropped to his knees next to him, his good hand held up; flat palm stretched out towards what totally _should_ be a deadly beam of pure energy. The beam was there alright, shooting out of Eggman's overkill cannon, meter-thick and hot-white… but it never reached the two Mobians on the ground. A brightly glowing barrier of emerald green was laid out through the air like the spherical half of a bubble shape, channelling the broad lance of energy to all sides as a fountain of destructive light that was now scorching the rocks surrounding them.

"What the…?" Sonic blinked, sitting fully upright, hands pressed to the ground at his sides, but his eyes still clinging to the glowing shape splitting the beam. He shook his head, forcing himself to look at Knuckles. The echidna had not moved an inch, gaze locked on the energy beam, his large palm still pointing at it. Sonic stared. "What have you…?"

A tiny smirk tugged on Knuckles' face, interrupting the look of concentration. "What did you call it a while ago? 'Awesome secret super powers'?"

Sonic laughed in spite of the situation and in spite of the tension still present in his muscles as an aftershock of that brief moment of panic. "Yeah, I remember something like that… So, I guess you'll have to admit you _do_ have them, Knux."

The echidna shot him a very short glance, between blinks. "You should have guessed. I have been controlling the most powerful thing on the planet mostly on instinct since I was small…"

"Mondo cool, Knux!" Sonic grinned, climbing back to his feet, but he quickly regained the seriousness he almost exclusively reserved for near-death situations. "We can't let him blow all that stuff here up…"

Knuckles nodded firmly. "No, we can't. Right now the chaos barrier protects the city. I'll buy you some time. Go smash his thing."

Sonic nodded back. "How long can you hold this?" He pointed at the magical green glow.

"Long enough. I would appreciate you not taking a picnic on the way, though." Knuckles smirked. "I'm not so sure because of the distance to the island and the Master Emerald."

"Got it." Sonic grinned, watching a small hole opening in the field next to Knuckles. "See ya!"

Knuckles didn't reply when Sonic slipped out of their shelter. The hole closing behind him, the blue hedgehog briefly studied the battlefield before him, molten ground, burning plants and not to forget massive beams of doom all around the place…

This was going to be interesting.

* * *

From a close distance, the sky scrapers of Empire City looked enormous. Giant, tall and massive pieces of concrete and glass, towering up higher than he was flying in the small biplane, and something about huge buildings so close to your aircraft was mildly disturbing.

Tails risked just short glances at his instruments. The computer screen showed enemy robots it had detected as small blinking red dots and the Tornado as a blue dot, but sadly the buildings and antennas and other high obstacles were not on the screen, and Tails wasn't fond of crashing into something while locating robots just because he didn't look outside enough.

His left hand tucked the control stick sharply to the left and his left foot pushed the pedal beneath it down, 'causing the Tornado to lean into a steep turn that let it curve around a sky scraper and brought a first group of robots in front of him.

Red optics glowed at the newcomer and a second later fire was opened at Tails and his trusty biplane. The young fox used just the ailerons to rock the plane's wings and dodge the bullets, his right hand lying over the trigger for the Tornado's own gun. Patiently Tails waited until a first robot was in his line of fire, then he took aim and his plane's machine gun roared. A bulky flying robot fell out of the sky like a stone, a cloud of smoke trailing its spiralling course.

Tails smirked a little, registering the hit he'd scored distractedly, his mind already focussing on the other enemies around. Dealing more shots to the remaining robots, he rounded the nearest sky scraper. Behind him, damaged robots dropped away like overripe fruit in Frog Forest Zone during a downpour.

Spotting a new group of enemies without the screen's assistance, Tails steeply dived down, his thumb once more operating the guns, taking out some more robots. Watching the ground closing in, the fox quickly pulled out of the dive, giving full throttle and climbing higher again, glimpsing at the screen to pick a way to take. He frowned when it suddenly seemed as if the entire center of the picture was red.

Looking outside again, he realized the notion wasn't so wrong. The small space between several high buildings was crowded with robots… and they were blocking any way for him to fly. Tails hastily set the board weapon to continuous fire, hoping he'd get a few out of his way like that, while his eyes frantically darted around. You couldn't stop in a plane. A plane wasn't like a car or helicopter. A plane only stayed in the air because of its speed, and in a situation like now, that speed, that speed requirement, could be lethal. Would he fly any slower, he'd stall, and if he didn't find any way to take quickly, he'd either crash into a random robot or a huge house. Neither was an option really…

"Come on…" A few robots were taken out by his fire, but they only cleared the space up to the building in front of him. And that building seemed to grow bigger and bigger. There was nowhere to fly...

But the wall of the sky scraper ahead wasn't entirely made of glass, steel and concrete. The upmost floor was like a terrace with a roof over it. Tails squinted upwards, trying to find a way to climb higher, but there were robots as well. He grimaced, blue eyes narrowing as they judged what lay ahead.

 _Sonic would do it_ , Tails thought. And that meant he would do it, too!

The fox' gaze remained firmly fixed to the narrow space between roof and floor ahead of him. He focussed on keeping the biplane in a clean level flight, hands locked around gas and controls. A bit of shaking, a single bit of turbulence, and he'd hit something for sure…

Tails bit his lip. You don't fly through a building. You just don't.

* * *

The mad scientist manning what Sonic had rather fittingly called an 'overkill cannon' adapted quickly to the unexpected survival of his opponents and the sudden appearance of a green sphere of energy shielding the city and the small figure of a red echidna from harm. Finding his so called death beams devoid of things to aim them at, the notorious madman resorted to go back to something he should have a solid base of practice doing, as far as Sonic was concerned: The Egg Scorcher swung slightly around, focussing its main fire power on the blue hedgehog rushing towards it.

Sonic was dodging around burning shrubbery, enflamed patches of ground and small puddles of actually _boiling_ stone that was so hot it was throwing bubbles. The smoke was biting in his lungs and what had been a fair morning not so long ago had quickly turned into a blistering hell.

Circling the truck-like vehicle the large cannon was mounted on, Sonic's conscious mind scanned the installation for weak spots, trusting his own safety to his instincts. There was no reason for the hedgehog to doubt his reflexes.

He needed a distraction. A little more space to breathe and think of a way to smash this thing. So far, he'd not gotten close enough to try striking it.

"Yo, Eggman!" Sonic shouted at the top of his lungs to make himself audible over the roar of the cannon and the noise from fire and wind around. He waved his arm at the cannon's top, towards the glass round behind which the crazed doctor sat, probably even under the comfort of an air conditioning system. "If you keep going at this rate, in a few minutes your whatchacallit will burn itself!"

"It is called the _Egg Scorcher_!" Robotnik's voice bellowed through a loudspeaker. "Get used to it, hedgehog!"

Sonic finished another revolution, mentally listing the glowing rear section of the carrier as a spot possibly sensitive to attack. Glowing things usually didn't take kindly to hedgehog spines. "It's not my fault you suck naming your inventions. I mean, how often were they called Egg whatever before?"

Point one on Sonic's on-the-spot attack plan was accomplished at this moment: An increasingly enraged Robotnik could no longer keep in his seat, instead he towered over his consoles, glaring at Sonic through the glass. "Prepare to be _toasted_ , you unrespectful pest!"

The blue hedgehog leaped over a puddle of boiling soil in his way, warily watching the cannon's large muzzle turn towards him. Just when Eggman started rotating the top of his carrier, locking the cannon's aim on the circular path Sonic had followed during the past minute, the hedgehog accelerated his steps, keeping himself always slightly ahead of the white-hot beam.

Still, he knew he wouldn't be able to keep this up for long. This was almost worse than the lava-filled rooms back in Eggmanland. The air was thick with smoke and so hot he was almost worried breathing it would set his insides afire. The sensation came rather close to that at least. He was melting, sweat coating his blue fur, drops of it running down his back, but it provided little cooling. Probably the only thing keeping him from dropping down in a puddle on the ground was the wind his speed generated around him, a shield of air blocking out a fraction of the heat and transporting another bit of it away.

Throwing side glances at the cannon, Sonic observed the vast plain around, picking out possible paths through the chaos. He decided for one and spent the next circle around Eggman's machine in agonizing impatience. Though lasting mere seconds, the wait dragged on like a little eternity. Green eyes narrowed as he approached the position. He would get just one attempt… and probably get his tail burned even in that one.

Passing a large rock to the right, Sonic shot out of his circular pattern as if having gotten too fast for orbit. The big rock, so he had calculated, should give him cover for the first few seconds…

A few seconds meant a lot if you could tackle super sonic speeds on foot. Sonic passed the sound barrier just a few of his rapid gasps after he'd broken out of the round course; a short, well-known pressure seemed to stand in his way for a tiny moment before breaking away, a rippling gust tearing on his quills as it fell behind him. This was about as fast as he could go just like that. All he could put in for a mad dash for the horizon across a steaming hell of a wasteland.

The disadvantages that came with this speed were obvious. Obstacles appeared in front of him so fast they could have been popping out of the ground without making a difference and a surely fatal trip could only be prevented by reflex and a good amount of sheer luck. Also, since moving faster than any sound could, Sonic didn't hear the roar of the beam cutting over blazing ground behind him. Denied any reference to what was happening in his rear through hearing it, he had to spent dangerous moments of turning his head to look over his shoulder. Moments prone to bring him into uncomfortable situations… Such as running headlong into a burning piece of burning stuff.

Speeding a track meant to bring him away from the cannon and out of Eggman's sight, Sonic had been forced to hand another advantage to his enemy: His cannon had to change angles just slightly to take accurate aim of the hedgehog. All Sonic could do was run a random zigzag course.

Another hasty glance back faced Sonic with an uncomfortable decision to make and he grimaced. It was either run right into a wall of fire that had maybe been a hedge before, or get into intimate contact with Eggman's death beam thing. If Sonic had had the time, he'd have certainly found a curse about this totally not being his day to mutter, but he didn't have time. Choosing the hedge as the smaller evil, he had the foresight to tuck into a spin and hold his breath before he burst right into it.

While the protective little ball of his spin dash kept the fire from most of his body, when Sonic regained his feet running the fur at his sides was black, the small flames luckily ripped away by the wind of his running before they could do further harm. The hedgehog ground his teeth at the sharp sting of the burns, something you could only call sixth sense guiding his squinting eyes over the plain before him until they fixed on a soft glitter in the glare of the sun.

He angled his direction towards it, towards the line of golden rounds levitating in gentle rotation, unspoiled by the havoc surrounding them. Each ring blinked in the sunlight as it turned, beckoning him to come closer. Behind the first line and as far as he could see, Sonic glimpsed several more. A firm grin was on his face when he ran into the first golden ring; the soft, tender _pling_ floating in his ears and through his head, for an instant blurring his world as the energy absorbed into his systems, erasing the pain of the burns in a tingling sensation.

The next ring followed, and so did many more. The cannon carrier had fallen behind him and Sonic could neither see the armed vehicle nor the energy beam anymore. _Should get old Eggman wondering if he really got me running for it this time_ , the hedgehog thought with ample amusement. With the injury gone, he already felt somewhat refreshed and ready to get the final stage of his improvised plan done.

Slowed down to a leisure jog, he allowed himself a bit of time to catch his breath while he went about the almost unharmed and welcomingly green field, collecting anything that was round and shiny within sight until he was reasonably sure to hold any ring in the proximity. He had never really paid attention to the feeling of their energy before. Maybe it had needed those days of totally lacking any feeling for chaos energy to get him aware of it…

Sonic grinned, briefly checking over his body. As far as he could tell, he looked in great condition to blow a doomsday cannon, and what he missed on looks was clearly solved by the feeling of energy flowing through him. He was filled with it, brimming with it.

The grin was still firmly sitting on his face as he set direction back into the burned land. Feet pounding the ground and wind screaming in his ears, Sonic tilted his head into the stream, pushing against it. His green eyes steadily fixed on where he knew his goal and he felt into himself again, ascertaining the familiar energy's presence. Enough to make him tingle all over. Sonic exhaled, took a deep breath, and dashed.

The world seemed stretch into a tunnel around him, the edges of his vision blurring into a flow of colours. The scream of air reached deafening level, but he felt almost no strain cutting through it. Like an arrow.

Sonic's grin broadened. He would strike Eggman's blasted cannon before Baldy McNosehair knew what was coming for him.

* * *

Anything like tolerance didn't exist. There wasn't any ' _one_ foot higher or lower'. The moment the Tornado's nose penetrated the room Tails had been more forced than chosen to fly through, he wished he'd have rather crashed into a robot or two.

The ceiling was directly above the tip of the plane's tail. Tails even thought he could hear the metal scraping along the hard ceiling above it, and he didn't want to imagine the trail of sparks it had to leave.

The room itself was filled with table and chairs. A restaurant perhaps… But the furniture just made the room even smaller. The Tornado's landing gear wheels tipped the tables several times, a few toppled over and shoved others along. The left wings were constantly just inches away from hitting the pillars holding the roof, and the damage such a hit could deal to the biplane was enormous. Just the impulse of the impact would be enough to complete destabilize the anyways fragile balance he held his plane in, and the result would probably be a fireball.

But suddenly the room was over and the Tornado slipped out into the brightness of free air again. Tails applied the full thrust without thinking and pulled the biplane into a climb that would bring him over the city.

It took the roughly ten seconds until the plane was stabilized in a smooth flight over the city, then Tails finally had enough free mental capacity to realize he was shivering and his heart felt as if it was going to explode in his chest. The little fox took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down.

When he felt like he could fly without problems again, he decided on a new strategy. He'd wanted to take down the robots without using big weapons. He'd thought it wasn't a good idea in the middle of a city. But really, the broken bots fell to the ground anyway. How much worse would it get if he used his heat seeking missiles?

Tails shrugged to himself. It was simple gesture, but it helped calm the mind at the moment. He went through his inventory for a moment, then circled back to where he knew the bunch of robots. He overflew them just barely above the sky scrapers and shot the missiles when he was closest to them. He didn't want them to take aim at anything else that was warmer than the surroundings.

Just a few minutes later, Tails had run out of missiles, but apparently he'd also cleared the city of flying robots. He leaned back into his seat, once more circling over the highest buildings of Empire City.

For a moment there was just one thought on his mind: Why didn't I think of the easy way out earlier.

A moment later another thing appeared to him: _What's that glowing green sphere just outside town?_

* * *

Just where was he?

Robotnik's head was turning around quickly, eyes behind high-tech glasses scanning the field around him. It didn't bear a lot of resemblance to the green meadow it had been a few minutes ago; the laser's heat had burned the plants and at places even melted the very soil. It was more powerful that he'd imagined it would be… Very satisfactory.

Again, the scientist threw a suspicious look around. Where was that pest of a blue pincushion? Had he really, _finally_ caused his most stubborn enemy to flee? That would be –

"What?!" Robotnik interrupted his train of thoughts when he caught sight of a blue streak heading straight for him from behind. "Sonic!"

Swiftly the human's hands darted over his controls, initialising the process of turning the cannon around to take aim at the hedgehog again. He was coming straight for him, path no longer dodging around burning obstacles. And he was coming in _fast_ …

Robotnik ground his teeth when the realization struck he wouldn't manage to turn the cannon far enough until Sonic reached him. The hedgehog was, once again, just too fast. "Just what are you up to, hedgehog!?"

The question was answered just a second later. When he was almost at the cannon carrier's tail end, Sonic jumped up and curled into a spinning ball of spikes in the air, and suddenly Robotnik understood what he was aiming at.

"No! Not the power core! Stop!"

But Sonic didn't listen, of course not. Hastily Robotnik unhitched the Egg-O-Matic and his flat palm fell heavily onto the switch for emergency ascent.

It was just in time. The sonic boom as the hedgehog passed by exploded in his ears right when the booster rockets pressed him into his seat as they accelerated the floating mobile up into the air. Another half a second later, the power core blew up with an intensity not even its creator would have expected.

* * *

Sonic impacted the 'power core', as Eggman had called the thing with the force of a spinballing comet. Electricity sizzled and danced over his spines as he bounced off, the glow from the generators intensified to blinding levels and the hedgehog had the foresight to whirl around, run away as fast as his feet gave and dive for cover after a second or two.

The shockwave following the detonation caught him in mid-air, pushing him forwards like an accelerated projectile. The instinctive impulse to tuck himself into a tight ball saved Sonic from breaking his neck or some other significant body part upon barrelling into a bunch of rocks. He choked out a small sound of pain, tumbling head over heels while shredding his momentum on what felt like hard and rough ground.

He didn't move when he came to a halt after colliding with… _something_ , forcing himself to focus on breathing, in and out, in and out, until he felt the adrenaline amount in his blood decrease below dizzying level. Then Sonic slowly unfurled himself, allowing his body another few seconds of just lying spread-eagled on the ground. Eventually he picked himself up, shooting his first look around, and a small gasp escaped his throat.

A couple of greenish patches and thin, blackened sticks indicated what he'd landed on had once been a meadow. Just a few meters to his left the asphalt of a cross-country road was still throwing out bubbles, faint mists of black smoke billowing up to half a meter above it.

Sonic carefully stood up all the way, clutching his left side with his hand. Slowly feeling his fingers through the blue fur, he found he thought his ribs were still all intact. It was a hefty bruise nonetheless…

A glance over his shoulder told him what had dealt it to him. The speed limit sign was bent to a good fifty-degree angle at about the height of his knees. Sonic just followed the impulse to kick at it, the force of the - though half-hearted - blow causing the bent metal to whip up and down. "Screw speed limits," Sonic grinned, for another moment watching the grotesque sight of the mutilated sign in midst of post-Egg-Scorcher chaos before turning away and carefully advancing back to where he'd left Knuckles.

He found his friend about ten minutes later, sitting with his back against the stem of a tree, just a few meters from the surreal line that separated burned from unharmed ground. The echidna looked up at hearing Sonic's approaching footsteps, through distinctively weary eyes watching the hedgehog walk up to him.

Sonic slipped down to sit on the grass next to him, savouring the soft green after the rough blackness he'd just emerged from. He waved a hand to gesture at the unhurt plant life around them. "Good job, Knux."

Knuckles smiled, letting his head drop back against the tree. "I'd give that back, but… _what_ took you so long?"

Sonic grinned and shrugged vaguely. "Sorry, Eggman didn't want me shutting down his machine, and I _guess_ something screwed up his generator or whatever power source it was. I had to settle for… percussive maintenance."

The echidna chuckled, his gaze briefly roaming Sonic, stopping here and there at a cut or a burn mark. "Didn't burn off any arms or legs?"

Another grin flashed on Sonic's face and he playfully pretended to look himself over. "Left arm? Still here. Right arm? Check. Legs? Yup, still there. Tail?" He turned his head to try looking over his shoulder at his backside. "Alright. Quills? All good!" His grin broadened as he turned back to Knuckles. "Still in one piece!"

"Good to hear…" Knuckles stifled a laugh and he was still smiling when he continued speaking. "Was it intentional that you left your head out when listing important body parts?"

Sonic blinked. "Um… No." He smiled sheepishly, running a hand through his spines. "Truth be told, I feel it well enough to be in no need of checking…"

Knuckles' grin broadened. "I see."

With the conversation having somewhat ceased at this point, Sonic took his time to return the unasked-for favour and check Knuckles over, but as far as he could tell the guardian was unharmed, aside of his anyways cast-up arm and that look of grogginess written all over his features. Sonic was not surprised; he wasn't exactly sure what Knuckles had done, but if it was anything like Chaos Control it was exhausting… and after the past week both of them hadn't been in the best of conditions anyway.

The blue hedgehog crawled back to his feet, offering his hand to his weary friend. "What do you say about we go find Tails now and head to your place?"

Knuckles smiled, letting Sonic pull him to his feet. "That's the best idea you had during the whole week."

Sonic grinned.


	24. Epilogue

The computer's high precision clock recorded 15:31:18 local time when a short flicker interrupted the steady lighting of the laboratory's lights.

Archibald didn't move from where he sat rooted to a chair for hours already, just waiting for this one moment. The raccoon's blue eyes firmly rested on the modified ring tank, still sitting in a cocoon of magnetic fields that would keep the distorted chaos energy inside of it.

The large capsule grew transparent, opaque, transparent again. For a moment it pulsed between existence and something else, and he could see a bright white glow coming through whenever the capsule would turn transparent again. The bright light reached peak level, stayed that way for a couple of seconds, attempting to burn a white dot into his retinas, then it popped away and the ring tank was gone.

Phase-shifted through space and time. And he'd been here to watch it happen.

Archibald smiled, reminding himself he would have to remember this day. It was just like watching a galaxy being born or a supernova exploding through the telescopes. It was something you'd see probably just once in your life, something significant even considering the sheer _size_ of the universe. A small event that changed the ways of time and space.

The professor smiled, for another moment watching the empty space before him, then he stood up. There still were a few galaxies he'd have to check up on… and just where had he put that take-out brochure again?

* * *

The nightly sky above was full of stars. A countless amount of shining lights. Beautiful, and unreachable. In the dim, silvery light they poured over the world, the smoke rising from the volcano crater seemed faint like mist, fragile shapes torn asunder by the winds.

Standing perfectly still, the young echidna priestess watched the orange glow the blistering heat of Lava Reef Zone gave out, watched the smoke rise up into the starry sky and disappear somewhere on the endless way up there. To Tikal, the volcano was a powerful place, a place where the might of chaos became evident to her. It was also a dangerous place, and going down there was not allowed. Nobody went down there…

Tikal sighed, her eyes again following the trails of smoke up to the coat of stars above her world. Maybe the inside of the crater and the stars up there on the unreachable sky were the only things her father wouldn't try conquering… Tikal loved Pachacamac, like every child loved their parents; but she had to find a way to make them all understand. War was wrong, fighting was wrong, the Emeralds wouldn't want that. There was no purpose worthy their powers in conquering another country. Another people. People like them. The… intentions were not right, and the mighty Emeralds would know. She didn't know what would happen, but she was scared of it.

A short, bright flash of light appeared almost above her. For a moment she thought it was a shooting star, but then the shine vanished and something oval, semi-transparent and glowing rushed past her to fall into the crater. She leaned forwards to look out for it, but the lava had already swallowed it up. Could shooting stars fall into a volcano? Could she stop her misguided clan?

Tikal slowly shook her head. She had no answer to either of those questions… but at least she could hope she'd find it sooner or later.

* * *

Taking a slow breath of Angel Island's crisp air, Sonic enjoyed the midday sun on his fur. The warmth was doing a magnificent job easing the slight soreness the fight had left into gentle relaxation. Sitting sideways on the edge of the highest treads of the Emerald altar's stairway, with his back against a small pillar and his left foot tucked under his right leg, the blue hedgehog let his eyes wanderer around.

Across of him sat Tails, cross-legged on the stone-paved floor, double namesakes wagging softly behind him. The fox' blue eyes were currently following the fluttering flight of two brightly yellow butterflies to his left.

Sonic turned slightly to look over at the third member of the group. Knuckles more lay than actually sat, leaned against the socket of the pedestal that held the Master Emerald, and the back of the guardian's head rested against the green gemstone. The echidna's legs stretched out with his feet crossed at the ankles, and in his lap lay the few remains of a paper bag that had been filled with grapes. Now just a bunch was left, and yet Knuckles' cast-up left arm was held around them as if he needed to protect a treasure while his right hand still slowly delivered the tiny fruits one by one to his mouth. The grogginess of just a few hours ago had mostly vanished and his face wore an unfamiliarly serene expression.

Sonic smiled a little to himself. He knew how much being back home and just sitting under the Master Emerald meant to the echidna. It was kind of rare seeing him not the least bit stressed out. Again the hedgehog's green eyes met Knuckles' snack and he pointed, smile growing enough to become an actual grin. "You know, nobody's going to take them from you. I just had so many chilli dogs I'm full."

Knuckles' eyes moved up from his food to track Sonic. "I don't trust you with food, hedgehog."

"Aww." Sonic faked an insulted look. "After all we've been through you still don't trust me?"

The echidna studied him for a moment, then he smirked. "I never said that. I said I don't trust you _with food_."

Laughing, Tails turned from watching the butterflies to his friends. "Don't worry, Knuckles, your grapes aren't exactly Sonic's thing."

"Un-spicy?" The echidna grinned.

"No. Healthy," Sonic deadpanned in a totally serious tone that caused his friends to break out laughing. The blue hedgehog managed to hold on to his seriousness for another few seconds, then he couldn't help himself anymore either.

When the laughter calmed down again, Knuckles looked between the others. "When are you leaving?"

Sonic raised an eyeridge. "You're trying to get rid of us?"

"I, uh… I didn't mean for it to sound like that…" The guardian shifted, suddenly embarrassment obvious on his face.

Another grin formed on Sonic's face. "Well, unless you really want us to go or try to throw us off this beautiful island of yours, we planned on staying for a while. After all, we had a kinda stressful week and your place makes for quite a holiday resort, doesn't it?"

Knuckles frowned. "It's not a –"

"Chill out, I'm just kidding you." Sonic calmingly waved his hand at him. " _Man_ …"

"We just mean… um, how will you guard the Master Emerald while your arm's still broken, Knuckles?", Tails asked.

The frown was still on the echidna's face. "What do you think, kid? I've been always guarding it alone, no matter if I was hurt or ill or something."

"But you're not alone anymore, Knuckles." The young fox trashed his twin tails. "You got us!"

"Yeah, uh, but… This isn't your job. It's mine." Knuckles' violet eyes moved from Tails to Sonic and back. "Don't you have anything you gotta do?"

"The only thing we had to do was stopping Eggman's trash of a plan," Sonic pointed out. "And since we dealt with him, with your help we can probably add, we don't have anything to do for real."

"Like Sonic said, you helped us defeating Dr. Eggman, and now we're gonna help you guard your Emerald until you're fine again," Tails added, smiling.

"You can just see it as a deal if you want to," Sonic noticed, pointy ears twitching a little. "Or as a chance to hang out with us. But if you don't want to…" The hedgehog shrugged, moving to stand up.

He was dusting himself off when Knuckles cleared his throat. "No. I... never meant you'd have to leave. If you really want to, you can stay…" Awkwardly the red echidna's gaze trailed from Sonic to Tails and back. "And, umm, thanks…"

Sonic chuckled, dropping back into his seating position on the ground. "Welcome."

"Heh." Knuckles smiled, his right hand rubbing the base of his neck.

Sonic openly grinned at him. "Stop looking like that and eat your grapes. Before I do…"

Knuckles chuckled and quickly snatched two of his favourite fruits. "Alright."

Tails giggled lightly, watching Knuckles eat. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Tails," the echidna replied through a mouthful.

"What was that green kind of force field?"

Knuckles looked up at Tails. "It's called a chaos barrier."

"You made it?"

"Yes." Another grape found its way between Knuckles' teeth.

Sonic smiled. "Didn't I tell ya?"

"How?" Tails's eyes were wide with awe.

Instead of an answer, Knuckles jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the Master Emerald.

Sonic shrugged and turned to Tails. "Like I said, awesome secret super powers."

Tails was still looking awed. "Is that chaos barrier like a green shield? Can you make a magnetic barrier, too? Or a warp hole? Or -?"

"Tails?" Knuckles smirked a little at the amount of questions.

"Yeah?"

"What did Sonic call it?" The smirk still played around Knuckles' lips.

"Uh, 'awesome secret super powers'?" Now the young fox looked puzzled.

Knuckles nodded slowly. "Correct."

Tails stared at him when no further explanation came. "What?"

Sonic laughed. "If he tells you, they're not _secret_ anymore…"

"Oh." Tails scratched his head. "I see…" For e moment he looked thoughtful, then he flipped his fingers. "If you tell me, I can tell you how to build your own plane!"

"I don't want to build any planes, Tails," Knuckles noticed, but his look softened in spite of the sarcasm when he saw Tails's disappointed look. "Look at it that way. I'm the Master Emerald's guardian and therefore I can use its power to make chaos barriers and stuff like that. Sonic is a chaos controller and can turn super and so on, and you're a lot smarter than the two of us together and therefore you can build planes and machines. Okay?"

Tails beamed. "Okay. We're all special, aren't we?"

"You say it, little bro." Sonic smiled between his friends. "And when we're together, nothing can stop us."

To the hedgehog's surprise, even Knuckles smiled at that. " _Yeah_." It didn't even sound _entirely_ sarcastic.

Sonic's own smile turned into a bright grin and he looked at the large glowing jewel behind the echidna. "Yo, Master Emerald! You're the safest giant shiny rock in the world now!"

The three friends laughed, and even the Emerald's steady light seemed to grow brighter for a moment.

 

The End


End file.
